"Washington Bullets" is a song from The Clash's 1980 album Sandinista!. A politically charged song, it is a simplified version of imperialist history from the 1959 Cuban Revolution to the Nicaraguan Sandinistas of the 1980s, with mention of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Soviet-Afghan War, the Dalai Lama, and Victor Jara, referencing his death at the hands of the Chilean military dictatorship in the stadium that now bears his name. Although a criticism of the foreign policy of the United States, the song's final stanza also delivers a harsh criticism on communism by making reference to the mass murder of pacifist Buddhist monks in the People's Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution and the USSR's Invasion of Afghanistan.
The song's title is often thought to have been a pun on the name of the American capital city's National Basketball Association franchise, which later went on to change its name to the Washington Wizards in 1997, but The Clash have denied any knowledge of the basketball team previous to the song's release.
The song is one of The Clash's more experimental, in the reggae style, with a marimba and lyrics that are almost spoken rather than sung. Though the marimba is the most prominent instrument, electric guitar riffs are still audible. The marimba part is an altered version of the melody from Turkey in the Straw.
On the tribute album The Clash Tribute: The Never Ending Story, the song was covered by Attila the Stockbroker, with new lyrics to the later verses, omitting the reference to Afghanistan and The Clash's subtle attack on communism. The new verses are critical of U.S. involvement in the end of the Soviet Union, and Boris Yeltsin's embrace of western-style capitalism, making particular disparaging references to the New world order following the end of the Cold War.
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Famous quotes containing the words washington and/or bullets:
“I date the end of the old republic and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late thirties, of air conditioning. Before air conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September.... But after air conditioning and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and sits while the presidents—or at least their staffs—never stop making mischief.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here, we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)