Pennie Smith captured bassist Paul Simonon smashing his Fender Precision Bass on stage — a slightly out-of-focus shot she didn't want used, but the band declared it the only possible cover. The typography deliberately mimics Elvis Presley's debut album.
The photograph captures bassist Paul Simonon in the act of smashing his Fender Precision Bass against the stage at The Palladium in New York City on September 21, 1979. Simonon was frustrated because security guards were forcing the audience to remain seated during the show — an affront to the spirit of punk rock. His anger boiled over during "White Man in Hammersmith Palais," and he swung the bass overhead and brought it crashing down on the stage.
Pennie Smith, the band's touring photographer, was standing in the orchestra pit and captured the moment on her Pentax camera. She initially did not want the image used for the cover because she felt it was technically flawed — slightly out of focus and poorly composed by traditional photographic standards. However, both the band and graphic designer Ray Lowry immediately recognized it as the perfect image. Joe Strummer reportedly overruled Smith's objections, declaring it the only possible cover.
Ray Lowry, an illustrator and graphic designer who was traveling with the band, designed the typography. He deliberately mimicked the layout of Elvis Presley's debut album (1956), using the same pink and green color scheme and similar typeface placement — the band's name at the top in pink, the album title at the bottom in green, both in blocky letters against the black-and-white photo. This was a conscious statement: The Clash saw themselves as carrying the revolutionary spirit of early rock and roll, and the visual reference to Elvis was both tribute and declaration that punk was the new rock and roll.
The smashed bass survived the incident — damaged but not destroyed. Simonon kept it, and in 2003 it was acquired by the Museum of London, where it is displayed as a piece of cultural heritage alongside artifacts from centuries of London history.
In 2002, Q magazine named it the greatest album cover of all time. The image has been called "the quintessential rock and roll photograph" — it captures energy, rebellion, and destruction in a single frozen moment. It influenced a generation of music photography, teaching photographers that technical imperfection could enhance rather than diminish an image's power. The Elvis-referencing design has itself been parodied and homaged countless times.