I'm So Bored with the USA

"I'm So Bored with the USA"
Song

"I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." is a song by British punk rock band The Clash, featured on their eponymous 1977 debut album, which was released in the United States in July 1979 as their second album after Give 'Em Enough Rope. It was the album's third track in the original version and second in the US version.

Song information

The song was originally titled "I'm So Bored With You", a love song written by Mick Jones. According to Keith Topping's book The Complete Clash, the song was about Jones's then girlfriend, the same woman who was the topic of "Deny".

According to the story often told by the song's authors Joe Strummer and Jones, including on the documentary Westway to the World, the change came about by Strummer mishearing the song's title when Jones played it to him during their first meeting at their Davies Road squat. The band's early recordings, including the popular live bootleg 5 Go Mad At The Roundhouse, include the song in its original form. However, by the time of the concert on 20 September 1976 at the Roundhouse, Camden, the song was performed using its new title. The intro to the song is a variant on the intro to 'Pretty Vacant' by the Sex Pistols.

Themes

Originally demoed with slightly different lyrics during The Clash's second demo session with their soundman Mickey Foote as producer, "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A."'s lyrics does exactly what its title suggests, condemns several aspects of the American society, such as drugs problems in the US Army (particularly heroin), the support of the American government to dictatorships in the Third World (later denounced on the Sandinista! track "Washington Bullets"), and popular police drama series Starsky and Hutch and Kojak. It also criticizes Richard Nixon, mentioning the Watergate scandal's tapes.

Personnel

• Joe Strummer - rhythm guitar, lead vocal
• Mick Jones - lead guitars, backing vocal
• Paul Simonon - bass guitar, backing vocal
• Terry Chimes - drums

Covers

• Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire often use the song's chorus as an introduction to their own "Windowsill" at live performances.
• Canadian punk band, The Subhumans, sang the song using the lyrics "I'm so bored with DOA" when opening for their fellow Vancouver punkers DOA, at the Commodore ballroom in 1982.