Songs by The Clash are rumoured to among the music blasted out 24/7 to inmates of Guantanamo Bay. But it’s not known if the playlist includes I’m So Bored with the USA. The US military has a bizarre history of turning Clash songs on their head with a certain blunt humour, in support of its own operational imperatives. General Noriega learnt the words to Should I Stay or Should I Go the hard way – as it shook the foundations of his Panamanian bolthole. Joe Strummer’s prophetic Rock the Casbah lyrics have provided the pumped up soundtrack for both of America’s Iraq wars and are still painted on the bombs dropped ‘between the minarets’ today.

Yankee dollar talk To the dictators of the world In fact it’s giving orders An’ they can’t afford to miss a word I’m So Bored with the USA – The Clash

The flipside of using The Clash in America’s global ‘War on Terror’ is that you can get into trouble when listening to them at home. A guy who played Clash songs in a taxi to Heathrow recently made headlines when he was reported by the driver and physically removed from his flight as a potential terrorist.

It is 25 years since they broke up, so this contradictory desire to co-opt their music, while simultaneously seeking to demonise it, demonstrates the continuing relevance of The Clash: shedding light on America’s ongoing love-hate relationship with the group and also the Clash’s love-hate relationship with America.