| "Spanish Bombs" is a song by The Clash, sung by Joe Strummer, and featured on their 1979 double album, London Calling. The song is about the Spanish Civil War and was written after travelling home from Wessex Studios when Joe Strummer was talking with Gaby Salter about ETA, an armed Basque nationalist separatist organisation founded in 1959 in Spain. "Spanish Bombs" praises the heroism of Republicans who ranged from centrists to revolutionary anarchists and communists in the Spanish Civil War, a major conflict that devastated Spain from July 17, 1936 to April 1, 1939 and ended in the victory of the Nationalists, who under the leadership of dictator Francisco Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist for the next 36 years.[2][4] Many locations and people associated with the Spanish Civil War are mentioned in the song lyrics. Andalucia was one of the first regions of Spain to be overtaken by the military rebels in 1936. Federico García Lorca, (referred to in the song as Federico Lorca), was a poet from Andalucia who was killed during the rebellion. The Guardia Civil (or "Civil Guard") is a military police force under the control of both the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defence of Spain. The line "They sang The Red Flag, they wore the black one" contains references to both the red flag as a symbol of socialism and the socialist anthem The Red Flag, as well as the black flag of the anarchists. The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), the Anarcho-syndicalist labour ... |
