A Year Of Songs #53: “Get Down Moses” by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
“Once I got to the mountain top, everywhere I could see
Prairie full of lost souls running from the priests of iniquity
Where the hell was Elijah?
Well, what do you do when the prophecy came was true?”
In a voice befitting a track that evokes a prophet revered by Judaism, Islam and Christianity in the first verse, Joe Strummer taps into the mystical force found in reggae’s most potent moments.
There’s a false notion that after The Clash Strummer didn’t create music with the same depth, urgency, or passion. “Get Down Moses” and the rest of Streetcore, his posthumously released swan song, puts the lie to that idea with a song cycle that feels like the proper follow-up Combat Rock never got.
Strummer breathes righteous fire, inciting Moses to carve another tablet out of LSD while stirring the masses to put their lips together and blow down the cages holding them in like the Walls of Jericho.
“Goin' to the very top
(Na na, na-na-na-na-na)
Where the truth crystallizes
Like jewels, in the rock, in the rock”
Using mostly first take vocals, longtime music sculptors, collaborators and wicked multi-instrumentalists in the Mescaleros, Martin Slattery and Scott Shields ease back the world music elements of the first two Mescaleros albums to craft a future rock that resonates with the late Clash sound while maintaining a 21st century zest.
2003’s Streetcore is a clear labor of love that honors Strummer’s core values and bright musical spectrum, poignant punctuation to Joe’s legacy after his sudden death from a heart attack in 2002.
