How’s this for a surprising musical coincidence? Frank Sinatra cut his version of "New York, New York" the same summer that the Clash recorded "London Calling." That nearly simultaneous expression of optimistic striving and dystopic despair - traditional pop music and aggressive punk rock -- is the jumping-off point for London Calling New York New York, a tale of two cities and two songs that came to exemplify them.

Peter Silverton, the veteran English journalist who died in 2023 not long after completing the manuscript, did numerous interviews and in-depth research to dig deep into the history and impact of the two songs on their respective cities. Combining musical scholarship, cultural analysis and personal memoir, London Calling New York New Yorkis rich with fascinating detail, scholarly insight and wit, taking detours into nostalgia, mythmaking, family, crime, war, art, terrorism, politics, film, fidelity and propaganda.

Salting the story with tales from his own colorful life, Silverton ranges back and forth across the Atlantic and over centuries, taking in the almost biological connection between the cities, the songs and their creators. From the Great Fire of London to a White Castle burger joint in the Bronx, from the Thames to the Hudson, Joe Strummer to George Gershwin, Noel Coward to Jay-Z, Primrose Hill to Yankee Stadium, Maggie Thatcher to Fiorello La Guardia, Silverton marshals a wealth of connections and coincidences to illuminate the creative process and its enduring cultural impact.

From the author’s note, “This is a story about two songs and the cities they came to represent, those songs’ writers, the two cities’ many other emblematic songs (and their writers) and the two metropolitan cultures: their differences and their similarities. It’s also a personal story: mine. It reaches back to my decades-long light friendship with Joe Strummer, my presence at several significant early performances of ‘London Calling’ and at Joe’s West London cremation in December 2002.”

Author: Peter Silverton
Publisher: Trouser Press
Pages: 213pp
Size: 6 x 9
Notes: paperback,
Release Date: March 12, 2025
ISBN: 979-8989828357