London Calling New York New York: Two Songs, Two Cities - Paperback

by Peter Silverton (Author)

How's this for a surprising musical coincidence: Frank Sinatra cut his version of "New York, New York" within weeks of the Clash recording "London Calling" in 1979. That nearly simultaneous expression of optimistic striving and dystopic modernity is the jumping-off point for London Calling New York New York, a tale of two cities and two songs that came to exemplify them.

Peter Silverton, the veteran English author and journalist who died in 2023, did numerous interviews and in-depth research to dig deep into the history and impact of the two songs on their respective cities. Combining musical scholarship, cultural analysis and personal memoir, London Calling New York New York is rich with wit, fascinating detail and scholarly insight.

Although the book is about two popular songs from two different cultures, it also addresses nostalgia, mythmaking, family, crime, war, art, terrorism, politics, film, fidelity and propaganda. From the Great Fire of London to a White Castle in the Bronx, from the Thames to the Hudson, Joe Strummer to George Gershwin, Noel Coward to Jay-Z, Primrose Hill to Yankee Stadium, Maggie Thatcher to Fiorello La Guardia, Silverton marshals connections and coincidences to illuminate the creative process and its enduring cultural impact.

As Silverton writes in his author's note, "This is a story about two songs and the cities they came to represent, those songs' writers, the two cities' many other emblematic songs (and their writers) and the two metropolitan cultures: their differences and their similarities. It's also a personal story: mine. It reaches back to my decades-long light friendship with Joe Strummer, my presence at several significant early performances of 'London Calling' and at Joe's West London cremation in December 2002."