Several songs from the first Clash album (The Clash) are on this collection. The greatest of which is the Clash's remake of the Bobby Fuller Four's "I Fought the Law." Bobby Fuller's 1965 original was a Buddy Hollyesque classic rife with ambivalence and sweet regret. It is more apologetic than antisocial:

"I miss my baby and I feel so bad,
I guess my race is run,
She is the best girl I ever had,
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won."

The Clash tilt the rhythm forward, shift the guitar riff from rockabilly-melodic to punk-propulsive and howl their way through the song with monomaniacal outrage and defiance. When Strummer sings, "A-breakin' rocks in the hot sun,
I fought the law and the law won, I fought the law and the law won," the rocks are beaten into dust and the law is put on notice that its victory is only temporary.

The Clash set the tone for the band's subsequent career. While the Clash moved musically through a variety of styles on subsequent albums: Give Them Enough Rope (1978), London Calling (1979), Black Market Clash EP (1980), Sandanista! (1980), Combat Rock (1982), including reggae ("Pressure Drop'" "The Guns of Brixton," "Bankrobber"), funk ("The Magnificent 7," "This Is Radio Clash," "Rock the Casbah"), and various rock permutations, the Clash's focus always remained on one thing: confrontation. The Clash is among the most aptly named groups in the history of rock and roll.

The Clash view "the clash" as an almost platonic ideal. When Strummer heard the Sex Pistols, he intuitively grasped that the system that had been built to smooth his privileged way in life was also a barrier that shielded him from something vital. Strummer grasped that the clash is the only real intersection between us. The clash can be positive or negative, but it must be honest because it is the very essence of life. Real feelings and desires and beliefs must be worn on every sleeve and spoken on every lip or else we are all living in our own sterile cages where no real living can take place.

Life is process, not result. Living consists of embracing that process. Even time has a clash-zone, the present, where the past conflicts with the future. Therefore reality itself is a clash and only those who realize this can live life to the fullest and be nourished by the sparks. Clash On Broadway offers the among the purest sparks that music has to offer.