I Fought The Law
Rock'n'Roll Anthems Vol. 1

This is probably the first time in radiophonic history that same song is played 19 times in the row. And what a better song to break the radiophonic laws than one of the greatest rock'n'roll anthems, I Fought The Law. When Sonny Curtis wrote this song in 1958, he probably felt he had a hit, but I don't think he even dreamt how far this song will go. Song was written when Buddy Holly was still alive, and it was supposed to be a new smash hit for The Crickets. Unfortunatelly, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash early in 1959, and he never got to record at that time the newest Sonny Curtis' song. After Holly's death, Curtis rejoined original Crickets (who were disbanded shortly before Holly died), and recorded I Fought The Law for the frist time. Needless to say, Crickets will never come close to Buddy Holly's legendary popularity, but they will continue making excellent records thouough years.

Crickets and Curtis, as genuine Texans, were in a unique position to shape rock music, and it's not too presumptuous to say that rock would never be the same without them. In particular, I Fought The Law as a stand alone song defined what rock'n'roll rebelion stands for. It's simple story of a bad rebel without a cause who misses his girl and good fun while breaking rocks in a jail after being caught in a banal crime of robbing people... Song was just made to be great.

Powerful riff, pacific but perky attitude was something that bad boys around the world recognized without mistakes. The only thing was that somebody new, somebody fresh and bad needed to make a version of it... And that was Bobby Fuller.

Bobby Fuller Four was one of the bands that came to surface in the middle of the "Louie Louie" garage-mania in the early sixties. Bobby Fuller himself was Texan and he pretty much sythetised figures of Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly in one. His voice in partcular was very similar to Holly's. Therefore, Fuller was an ideal solution to promote I Fought The Law. And he scored. This song in his version became a worldwide hit and it established itself as a rock'n'roll anthem of every rock'n'roll bad boy.

It is really interesting to know that Fuller died at an early age with a bizarre death. He was found dead in his car at a parking lot in Hollywood and it's still unclear what exactly happened and how he died. In any case, the story made Fuller's status as a rock'n'roll icon even stronger.

Soon garage-maina got ahold of every street and I Fought The Law became inevitable part of the repertoire of many bands, and in that time, every street in the world had at least one good band. In sixties and seventies most remarkable covers of this song were the Roy Orbison verison (with black ladies singing in the background) and later, Sonny Curtis came back to it and made a good version during his solo days. Also, early line up of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band had a good version. One of the forgotten versions, but certainly one of the most interesting versions was the one by The Hoodoo Rhythm Devils. They were just amazing in the way they blended and balanced both withe and black cultures in a single song. Their powerful, lenghty version of I Fought The Law is one of the forgotten jewels of rock.

But the new life was just about to be given to this song. Just before they released their remarkable double album London Calling, British punkers The Clash gave their own version of that song on a 45. At that time the song was nearly forgotten, and it was just an amazing idea for The Clash to cover it. Punk and I Fought The Law just briliantly coexisted on that track, and Clash made a definitve link between garage scene of the sixties and seventies punk. Clash's version of this song became as important as Bobby Fuller's. Soon, just like in the sixites, every punk band in the world would try to make their verison of I Fought The Law.

Sonny Curtis was probably watching all this with a smile. He and The Crickets always went back to that song. In 1997, on Nanci Griffith's Blue Roses album magic happened when Nanci's band together with the Crickets delivered a wonderful feminine version of this Curtis' masterpiece.

Other ruther interesting versions of I Fought The Law, although not quite as popular, were the versions by multi-national French neo-punk outfit Mano Negra, and by the Los Angeles cult band Mary's Danish with their female duet at the foreground and wall of noisy guitars in the back.

In this special show, we also had a chance to remember a forgotten artist called Sam Neely and his powerful version of this song, who started his career in the middle of garage-mania.

Breakin' rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won
I fougth the law and the law won


I needed money 'cause I had none
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won


I miss/left my baby and I feel so bad
I guess my race is run
She was the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won


Robbin' people with a six-gun/zip-gun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won


I miss my baby and the good fun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won


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

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