One of the very worst songs by my very favorite band the Clash is called "Play to Win."
While "Play to Win" is a perfect title for this week's pinball/arcade/gambling Season, the Clash's recording of this song is buried by much-too-loud-in-the-mix samples of music and sound effects from mid-80s arcade games - including my favorite fighting game at the time, Yie Ar Kung Fu! - and rather than verses, the song has barely audible dialogues between Clash singer Joe Strummer and someone else who isn't credited anywhere.
I lack the technical skills to put arcade samples together a ukulele perfomance.
Though pulling the chords and the rhythm out from under the original recording's poorly executed samples - and completely ignoring the spoken dialogues between the refrains -revealed the Clash's heartfelt yearning for a world that has the best of the old and the new.
