Combat Rock

After early sessions in London the band recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York in November and December 1981, and then toured Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Thailand. They had recorded 18 songs, enough for a double album, and Glyn Johns edited it at his garden studio in Warnham, West Sussex, cutting a 77-minute double album to a 46-minute single record by trimming songs and dropping some entirely. Strummer and Jones re-recorded vocals for Should I Stay or Should I Go and Know Your Rights. Pennie Smith shot the cover photograph in Thailand in March 1982, and the catalogue number was FMLN2.

The Vietnam War and its aftermath recur through the lyrics. Straight to Hell describes children left behind by American soldiers, Sean Flynn is about the photojournalist of that name, and the beat poet Allen Ginsberg guests on Ghetto Defendant. Headon wrote and played most of Rock the Casbah. Singles were Know Your Rights, Rock the Casbah, and a double A-side of Should I Stay or Should I Go with Straight to Hell.

It reached number 2 in the UK, kept off the top by Paul McCartney's Tug of War, and number 7 in the US, where it is certified multi-platinum. David Fricke wrote in Rolling Stone in 1982 that above all else it is an album of fight songs. NME ranked it fourth among the albums of 1982. Pitchfork judged it better than it has any right to be. The Guardian's Dave Simpson ranked Straight to Hell second among the band's 40 greatest songs and reported that Strummer called it one of the band's absolute masterpieces. A 40th anniversary edition, Combat Rock / The People's Hall, appeared on 20 May 2022.