Lyrics to
London’s Burning

This version of London’S Burning was released by The Clash in 1977.

Our Decade Lyrics The Clash profile has all of the London’S Burning lyrics from 1977 and many more songs from the The Clash discography that we have on file.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to The Clash or about the 1970s in general.

London’s burning! London’s burning!

All across the town, all across the night
Everybody’s driving with full headlights
Black or white turn it on, face the new religion
Everybody’s sitting ’round watching television!

London’s burning with boredom now
London’s burning dial 99999

I’m up and down the Westway, in an’ out the lights
What a great traffic system – it’s so bright
I can’t think of a better way to spend the night
Then speeding around underneath the yellow lights

London’s burning with boredom now
London’s burning dial 99999

Now I’m in the subway and I’m looking for the flat
This one leads to this block, this one leads to that
The wind howls through the empty blocks looking for a home
I run through the empty stone because I’m all alone

London’s burning with boredom now…
London’s burning dial 99999

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The Clash has released many songs over the years besides London’S Burning. The Clash released songs from 1977 to 1993 spanning across albums like The Clash, Give 'em Enough Rope, London Calling, Sandinista!, Combat Rock, Cut The Crap, and Super Black Market Clash. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Clash.

If you're a fan of popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1977 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and London’S Burning by The Clash

When you decide to study the lyrics to London’S Burning, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1977 song by The Clash. Some of the lyrics to London’S Burning have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only The Clash and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to London’S Burning if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to London’S Burning" means the words set to the music of London’S Burning, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Clash. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to London’S Burning and the lyrics to London’S Burning are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Clash who came here looking just for the lyrics to London’S Burning, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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