The Cost of Living E.P.

The Cost of Living is a four-track EP from the Clash, released on 11 May 1979 on CBS in a gatefold sleeve. The band produced it with Bill Price, recording at Wessex Studios in Highbury, London. It sits between Give 'Em Enough Rope and London Calling, and you can hear the band shifting gear: the raw urgency of the early records is giving way to a broader, more American-flavoured rock and roll, most clearly on the folk-rock leanings of "Groovy Times" and "Gates of the West".

The EP's best-known song is its cover of Sonny Curtis's "I Fought the Law", which stayed in the live set for much of the band's career, and Joe Strummer later played it with his subsequent groups, including during his time with the Pogues. "Capital Radio" is re-recorded here, stretched out by a long outro, after the band learned that copies of the original were fetching high prices. "Gates of the West" captures their excitement at first encountering the United States.