time, both because the effect seemed like low-brow rabble-rousing, and they compared unfavorably with Jones's earlier backing vocals. The drums are largely untreated with sound effects which left them sounding dull. Knowles suggested that adding reverb would have helped to create a more organic "roomy" sound, so the songs wouldn't feel "so canned and phony". Against this, the live instrumentation is tight and cohesive. Each of the new recruits was a skilled musician, and they had just come off a tour during which Rhodes had instructed them not to vary song structures or guitar leads between performances. Side one "Dictator", one of the earliest songs the new line-up played during their European tour, has been described as "the poorest possible choice for the opening track". Music critic Lennox Samuels wrote in 1985 that the song is "a messy mix of horns and a Pink Floyd-like voice-over". The album cut omits the live version's bridge, changes the drum pattern, and replaces most of the guitar parts with atonal synth lines. The music journalist Martin Popoff described the lyrics' depiction of a Central American authoritarian as "surprisingly flat and dead". The critic Mark Andersen described it as "one of the less successful of the new tunes". The guitar-based "Dirty Punk" is built from a basic three-chord structure reminiscent of the band's self-titled debut studio album. White believed it should have been the lead single and could have been a hit. Although generally well received, critics dismissed its synthetic drum sound as at odds with its back-to-basics sound. The track was written just after the 1984 tour, when Strummer was attending to his terminally ill mother, so it is assumed that most of the lyrics were composed by Rhodes. They are written from the point of view of a young punk who feels overshadowed by an older brother, but the story is told in such simple terms that it has been characterised as having "Neanderthal lyrics that read as if a parody of a punk rock song". The relative simplicity of the lyrics were criticised by Vulture, who described them as akin to "Mick Jagger's '80s output, bland cliché for bland cliché." The rallying cry lyrics for "We Are the Clash" are sometimes seen as a defiant response to Jones's lawsuit. The album version differs substantially from both earlier live recordings and a 1983 demo. It is more polished, the lyrics have been