Swan songs and sound bytes: 8 snippets of world music history from Thailand

1. The last Clash

The cover of “Combat Rock,” The Clash's biggest-selling album, was shot on a railway line just outside Bangkok. The capital was the last stop on a world tour that screeched to a grinding halt in 1982. 

After a show at Thammasat University, the formidable foursome from England opted for some R and R in Bangkok that quickly turned calamitous.

Drummer Topper Headon, soon to be kicked out for heroin addiction, relapsed, while bass-slayer and heartthrob Paul Simonon came down with a tropical malady. Lead guitarist Mick Jones, who would only stick around for one more album, went AWOL and the band’s leader Joe Strummer hit the go-go bars while on an extended bender.

Far from behaving like the left-leaning radicals who made the triple album and rallying cry "Sandinista!", the group ended up emulating the GIs they scorned in songs like “Charlie Don’t Surf” (a line pilfered from "Apocalypse Now"). 

When photographer Pennie Smith (who also shot the cover for “London Calling” that shows Simonon smashing his bass) convened the “Combat Rock” photo session on the railway tracks, she said it was like watching the end of the line for punk’s most revolutionary act. 

After years of racking up the miles and tour stops as relentless road warriors, The Clash met their Waterloo in Bangkok. 

2. Bong rock

Years before Murray Head’s annoyingly catchy “One Night in Bangkok” pricked the ears (and some nether regions) of listeners around the world, Rush, the prog-rock brontosauruses from Toronto, were likely the first Western band to reference the capital in a song.

“A Passage to Bangkok” appeared on their 1976 breakout album "2112".

Still a staple of the group’s concerts, the track is an ode to hashish and marijuana half-baked in 1970s slang and sly references to “golden Acapulco nights.”

The verses make stopovers in Bogota, Jamaica, Morocco, Afghanistan and Kathmandu, but the chorus reeks of “Thai stick.”

“We’re on the train to Bangkok/Aboard the Thailand Express/We’ll hit the stops along the way/We only stop for the best.”

3. Elegy in Blue

Art Porter became a jazz legend-in-the-making at the age of 16 when the future United States president Bill Clinton, a fellow saxophonist and then governor general of Arkansas, pushed for legislation to allow underage musicians to perform in the state’s clubs. That historic law became known as the “Art Porter Bill.”

The musician was at the apex of his tremendous abilities during a performance at the Golden Jubilee Jazz Festival that gripped Bangkok in 1996.

Porter and his band blew most of the other acts away with an upbeat set melding funk, soul and be-bop. It was rare to see a jazzman with a rock star’s sense of showmanship and stagecraft.

Two days later, on a holiday outing, Porter went for a boat ride on the Sai Yok Reservoir in Kanchanaburi province. Tragically, the boat sank in circumstances that remain murky, and father-of-two Porter -- who was only 35 -- was among several who drowned. 

4. Thai muses

For fans of The Pogues’ lead wastrel, Shane McGowan, it should come as no surprise that Thailand used to be a favorite stop on his Asian tours of debauchery.

On the group’s last album before he departed, "Hell’s Ditch" (1990), produced by Joe Strummer, the Irishman wrote two songs about the country: “Summer in Siam” is a languid ballad, while the surf rock “House of the Gods” sings the praises of Pattaya Beach, Singha beer and local lasses.

The lyrics put a Thai slant on The Kinks’ “Lola” as the intoxicated protagonist picks up a woman only to flee in horror when he finds out that “she” is a ladyboy.