Train in Vain

Jones wrote most of it and sang lead, with Strummer on piano, Mickey Gallagher on organ, Simonon on bass and Headon on drums. It was added at the last minute after a deal for the band to write a song for an NME flexi disc fell through. The sleeves were already in production, so it was not listed on the original sleeve or label, though its title was scratched into the run-off groove of side four. Bill Price said it was never meant to be hidden. Jones said the track was like a train rhythm, with once again that feeling of being lost.

In the US it was released as a single on 12 February 1980, backed with London Calling, and reached number 23 on the Hot 100, their first single in the US top 40. In North America the title is expanded to Train in Vain (Stand by Me). Dave Simpson of the Guardian ranked it tenth among the Clash's 40 greatest songs and called it Pete Townshend's favourite Clash tune. The BBC's Mark Sutherland praised it as possibly the best song of all. In Rolling Stone in 1980 Tom Carson wrote that it arrives like an orphan after Revolution Rock.