Lyric discussion by knockout000 

Some of the lines contradict themselves, like "The Ice Age is coming, the sun's zooming in. Meltdown expected; the wheat's growing thin. Engines stopped running . . ." Every time I hear that part, I think of someone walking down the street and hearing bits and pieces of other people's conversations about what's going on. Someone thinks the Ice Age is coming, another person says the sun's zooming in, and "meltdown expected, the wheat's growing thin, engines stopped running" sound like things heard on the news, like a weather forecast and two breaking news updates, maybe.

As for the "but I have no fear, 'cause London is drowning and I, I live by the river" line that everyone's so confused by, I really don't see what's so confusing about it. Even though London's drowning, he has o fear because he lives by the river, so he most likely won't suffer as much because he will be one of the first to die when the river overflows.

@knockout000 Not far off - Strummer was tlking about different potential disasters being reported in the media , soem of them seemingly contradictory, but saying that he wasn't going to worry about these because living where he did the Thames flooding was a more immediate threat (before they built the Thames flood barrier)

@knockout000 "Engines stopped running" -- there was an oil crisis in the late 70s engineered by OPEC. \r\n\r\n"Nuclear error," "meltdown expected"-- Three Mile Island. \r\n\r\nI think you\'re right about it being about the rumours going round. "You know what they said-- well, some of it was true."

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