Punk Rock Ginsberg

Due to the fact that we're still on Ginsberg and Howl in lecture, which I'm totally not complaining about or anything, I felt the need to showcase his punk rock side in the years after the publication of Howl. For starters, "A Supermarket in America" truly did inspire this song from the Clash called "I'm All Lost in the Supermarket" off of (in my opinion) their magnum opus London Calling. 

The Clash had been signed to a big boy record label and a lot of fans called them sellouts, even though their albums continued to have some really solid hits. So at one point during their Sandinistas! tour, the band were playing in Times Square and had Ginsberg backstage. As the urban legend goes, apparently straight from Ginsberg's mouth, Joe Strummer invited him on stage to talk smack on American politics, but Ginsberg had written a little anti-authoritarian song instead. So the band and Ginsberg practiced together for five minutes, then performed their impromptu song called "Capital Air," which the Clash later emulates with "Ghetto Defendant." Though this video is again, not an actual movin' pictures sorta clip, here's a nice live recording:

(Don't be fooled by Youtube. There's another video similiar to this that claims to have the Clash backing Ginsberg, but it clearly was not the Clash in that video. Though it's called Poetry in Motion and has some kind words from Ginsberg at the beginning and end of the clip.)

Is it not fitting for a Beat like Ginsberg to expand his musical horizons from jazz to punk rock? Goin' on stage to say whatever is on his mind without going on trial for it? It's pretty great because thirty years after the trial for Howl, Ginsberg likely couldn't fully identify with "I Fought the Law" because HE WON!