"Clampdown" is a single and a song by The Clash from their album London Calling. The song began as an instrumental track called "Working and Waiting". It is sometimes called "Working for the Clampdown" which is the main lyric of the song, and also the title provided on the album's lyric sheet. Its lyrics comment on people who forsake the idealism of youth and urges young people to fight the status quo.

In 1980 "Clampdown" was released as a single backed with "The Guns of Brixton" in Australia. The single was not released in any other territories, with the exception of US promos.

"Clampdown" was written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones.

The song's lyrics, written by Joe Strummer, refers to the failures of capitalist society. The wearing of the "blue and brown" refers to the color of the uniforms that are mostly worn by workers. This idea goes along with lyrics that refer to "young believers" who are brought and bought into the capital system by those "working for the clampdown" who will "teach with twisted speech." Strummer wrote,

These lyrics are seen to refer to how one gets caught by the capital economic system and its ethos of work, debt, power, position and conformist lifestyle. Strummer, who was a proud and loud socialist, also uses the song's closing refrain to highlight this mindset and potential trap and offers a warning not to give oneself over to "the clampdown". This is emphasized in the coda by Jones' repetition of the words "work" and "more work" on the beat over Strummers breathy repetition of the phrase "working for the clampdown". This reaffirms the idea that Strummer saw "the clampdown" as a threat to all who get caught up in the modern economic wage-hour system. Bass player and Clash co-founder Paul Simonon, in an interview with the LA Times, spoke about the opportunities available to him after he finished his education,

Strummer, like Simonon, spent time on the dole, but Strummer did not come from a lower-class family. In the same interview with the LA Times Strummer said,

Strummer's father was a diplomat in the British Field Service, and Joe was sent away to boarding school where he detested "the thick rich people’s thick rich kids". Strummer said,

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