A few years ago, I guess, there were ads using this slogan (or moniker?) about “London Calling”, but what the heck does that mean and/or to what does/did it refer? What is alluding to some reality TV show, or something?
Pop culture - the ultimate oximoron!
I know that ‘London Calling’ is the name of a song by ‘The Clash’ (I think). Don’t know if this helps.
I may be mistaken - I have no cite at the moment, but I believe the phrase “This is London Calling” traces its origins to WWII. It was a phrase used by UK propaganda radio aimed at Europe during the occupation.
I’ll try to dig up a cite.
I’ve done a little checking, and I should amend my previous post before someone comes in here and beats me with a clue stick.
It appears that the phrase “This is London Calling” was (is?) a standard phrase used by BBC radio. The phrase apparently became very well known during WWII, but I don’t know if that’s when it started. The broadcasts were heard in parts of occupied Europe, particularly France, and I believe BBC broadcasting would air coded messages for the benefit of resistance fighters and deep operatives. They also broadcast the news and propaganda from the allied side, and obviously became a target of the Nazis and Luftwaffe.
How and when it started is what I’m trying to find, and have not as of yet.
From the beginning, basically. You can hear a recreation of the BBC’s first broadcast here:“2LO, Marconi House, London, calling.”
As others have noted it was a BBC radio program catch phrase, then that was used as the title song in an album that was regarded as one of the masterworks of punk sensibilities that defined and resonated with the (then) zeitgeist. Now, mainly playing off the album’s resonance, it’s been appropriated for use as a “cool” moniker for all manner of telephonic and internet services.
Easily one of the masterworks of rock and roll
The Clash -London Calling.
True and the messages were weird.
The announcer would talk on and on with things like:
“Aunt Matilda and Uncle Josiah will be going to Stoke-on-Trent day after tomorrow.”
“The gray cat was sitting on the window sill this morning.”
“Winds from the east is very cold these days but I have a warm coat so I’m not bothered by that.”
This went on for half hour or so at a time, several times a day. Most of the messages were junk for the purpose of giving enemy code breakers so much information that they would have a tough time analysing it all and the real messages buried in the junk would have a better chance of not being uncovered.
To continue the hijack. In the book The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan wrote that on 4 June one of these messages was picked up by a German listening station and decyphered. It was a message to all resistance and clandestine operatives on the Continent and stated that the invasion would take place within 24 hours. The message was passed on to higher headquarters and to Berlin. When the invasion did not take place within the time stated the German high command relaxed. And when the invasion actually did occur on the 6th, Hitler was so sure that the area around Calais was the intended target of any invasion the landings in Normandy were discounted as a mere diversionary raid. The reports from the field of “thousands of ships from horizon to horizon” were dismissed as panic on the part of inexperienced troops on the site.
This is an excellent illustration of the perils of interpreting intelligence information through the lens of preconceived assumptions about the enemy’s intentions.
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David Simmons, were you stationed in England back then? If so, I’m just curious about how often you got to listen to BBC radio, and how often did you hear the term “This is London Calling”. What was normally played or aired when they weren’t sending out the coded messages? Any direct messages to the Germans telling them to give up their fight?
Thanks for any insight.
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I was in France but the messages were still being broadcast to operatives in occupied areas of Belgium, Luxemburg and The Netherlands.
We listened to the BBC regularly, but I don’t specifically recall the phrase. Axis Sally was another favorite because she played good music. Sometimes the intros were a hoot. The Glen Miller band had a popular recording entitled Pennsylvania Six, Five, Oh Oh Oh which, I think, was the telephone number for the Pennsylvania RR Station. Anyway, it was always announced as "Pennsylvania Sixty Five Thousand.
And the BBC still haven’t learnt their lesson to this day. Click on the MP3 link in the box.
http://groovetown.co.uk/songs/displaysong.php?id=482&PHPSESSID=e02415659c891b2f5384a00bb5454185
Is “Pennsylvania 6-5000” pronounced as “Pennsylvania six five-thousand” not the name of the song? Because that’s what they sing in it. (Alternating with Pennsylvania Six Five Oh Oh Oh."
At any rate, I’ve always called it and heard it called “Pennsylvania Six Five-Thousand,” but this wouldn’t be the first time I screwed up a song title.
On the German side there was a group on English speakers broadcasting to Britain. There " call sign " was Germany calling, Germany calling One of these broadcaster was the Irish American William Joyce who was given the title Lord Haw Haw . This was because it sounded as though he was an aristocrat. In reality he sounded that way because of a broken nose suffered in a punch-up during a pre-war fascist march in London.
“Pennsylvania Six-Five-Thousand” is the phone number of the Pennsylvania Hotel in NYC.
I called the Pennsylvania Hotel a couple of years back. I wasn’t thinking about Glenn Miller but when you call their number you hear an excerpt from the song. They’ve been using the same number since 1919; apparently it’s the longest existing phone number in the world.
The title could be Pennsylvania Six Five-Thousand but it is most definitely not Pennsylvania Sixty Five Thousand.
“London Calling” is also the first song of the London Calling double LP; here is the lyric.
And one last word. Hotel Pennsylvania is across the street from Penn Station. I knew there was a connection because I remember an interview with Ray McKinley in which Penn Station was mentioned. He probably said that the phone was for the Hotel, ‘right across from Penn Station’ or something like that.
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=2527
I had always thought that the phrase, “I live by the river” was actually meant to refer to a very specific time and social issue, where yuppies were buying up expensive flats around this area whilst others were also living destitute in the same area, so the vocalist could be either.
More a comment on some Thatcherite values, and something of a wordplay on the London doomday scenario.
To answer your question, Jaguar used the Clash song in a “London Calling” ad campain a few years back.
They even produced a CD that had London Calling plus 10 or so other 80s English tunes on it. I have a copy at home somewhere.