It's an allegory, which would be more clear if Ginsberg's poem wasn't interspersed with Strummer's lyrics, but set off on their own like on the album sleeve. ostensibly, the song is about a graffiti artist/street poet who eventually becomes famous in the white art community and dies
(His words like flamethrowers
Burnt the ghettos in their chests
His face was painted whiter
And he was laid to rest)
The deeper story is that of black music and other art forms being "cleaned up" for the dominant culture, "painted whiter" as the song says. The originators of that art form move on, and it is "laid to rest." Ginsberg's poem effectively ties that to mainstream culture absorbing the counterculture into itself.
It's an allegory, which would be more clear if Ginsberg's poem wasn't interspersed with Strummer's lyrics, but set off on their own like on the album sleeve. ostensibly, the song is about a graffiti artist/street poet who eventually becomes famous in the white art community and dies (His words like flamethrowers Burnt the ghettos in their chests His face was painted whiter And he was laid to rest) The deeper story is that of black music and other art forms being "cleaned up" for the dominant culture, "painted whiter" as the song says. The originators of that art form move on, and it is "laid to rest." Ginsberg's poem effectively ties that to mainstream culture absorbing the counterculture into itself.