What this means to me

Its been a recurring topic recently. How important the Sex Pistols were to many but yet not to me.
There was always another band that from being as young as I can remember always seemed far more important.
Now don't get me wrong, I understand the reasoning for the love of the Sex Pistols.
For anyone angry, aware and disillusioned with modern life, here was something that kicked back snarling and full of rage and energy, rarely seen even in this day and age.
Hence why they are still popular and many peoples first lesson in that there was something more out there in music than saccarine sweet pop music pursuading you that everything was great and groovy.
But having been born and raised quite literally into a punk scene that emerged in 77 and was not quite dead in 81, I never really felt the need to outright shock people. I did that enough just being who I was.
But there was another band that I heard from being very little - understanding the rythm before I understood the words, appreciating that everyone that a small child knew back then loved this band for reasons not nessaccery to explain but completely understood as she aged.
This band were the Clash.
This band that sang about things as if it had been written about your life. The band that watched what was going on and put it to music. The Clash were and still are the band that meant the world to so many people.
Musically they encompassed so many sounds, drawing heavily from a black music scene that still suffered discrimination. And in a rare turnaround gave back so much to.
And the thing that really meant the world.. in the years that followed, they still believed that.. and still encouraged everyone else to believe it to.
Joe's Mescaleros produced such beautiful music that still moves. And 6 Years after his passing theres still that spirit. That energy to do something. Whatever that something was to do it positively.
There was anger aplenty in the Clash's music but there was also a humility that is rare in any music. The band that forever symbolised the path of the common people; and that is why they forever will hold a place in my heart that would never be replaced.