White Riot is the name of a song by the English punk rock band, The Clash. The track was written after Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon became involved with the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival riot. The lyrical content of the track is about class economics and race, calling for white youth to rise up and find something worthwhile to riot about, since the black youth already had.
It appears on the self-titled debut album as the 4th track on side 1, and was released as the band's first single in 1977 along with the B-side 1977. In the UK Singles Chart, it only reached position 38, but did manage to spend 40 weeks in the charts (the last 7 on re-entry). On the UK version, it begins with Mick Jones counting off "1-2-3-4", while in the American version (which is 2:01 in length instead of 1:56) the song starts with the sound of a police siren.
In March of 2005, Q Magazine placed the track at number 34 in their 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks list.