The Clash – Brand New Cadillac

Wessex warm-up that Guy Stevens kept as take one

Brand New Cadillac sits as track two on The Clash’s London Calling, right after the title song. CBS released the double album on 14 December 1979. The song itself is older: Vince Taylor and his Playboys cut it in 1959 as a British rock and roll B-side. Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon recorded their version at Wessex Sound Studios in London during the winter 1979 sessions, with Guy Stevens producing and Bill Price engineering.

The Clash had used Taylor’s original as a soundcheck warm-up. On the first day of serious tracking they ran it to loosen up before new material. Stevens heard the take over the talkback and told them it was already in the can. Headon later confirmed it was the first track they finished for the album. Strummer takes the vocal and the main guitar figure; Jones adds the solo and rhythm; Simonon locks the bass; Headon drives a hard, short arrangement that lasts just over two minutes.

Strummer treated Taylor as a British rock and roll pioneer, not a museum piece. The cover sits between the political urgency of London Calling and the wider roots mix on the double album (rockabilly, reggae, R&B) that made the LP more than another punk statement. On stage through 1979–80 the song stayed in the set as a short blast between newer writing, including the Capitol Theatre show in Passaic in March 1980.