Conscious content from J’can lyricists
WHEN WE think about the wealth of conscious lyrics that permeate Jamaica’s popular music, it may very well put to rest or temper the lyrical obscenities highlighted in last week’s article – ‘Slackness sells’.
With a rich history of songwriting talent in popular music, Jamaica equalled, or perhaps surpassed, anything that the world had to offer in terms of conscious lyrical content. How much more philosophical, or dare I say poetic, can a writer get after exhorting his listeners to:
“Live every moment as if it were your last
Times they’re changing, they’re flying fast
Do you some good, the very best that you can
to every child, woman and man.
The next breath is not guaranteed to anyone
Can’t you see all the people passing on.”
The lyrics came from the pen of lyricist extraordinaire Bob Andy – to my mind, the best the nation has produced. Titled
I Love This Life, the recording was a 1995 release by the overseas conglomerate
Heavy
Beat Records.
The absorbing lyrics continued with:
“I’ve committed myself to a righteous cause
In this kind of living you don’t break no laws.
I wandered around seeking someone to be
Only to find I could only be me. Life is a gift, the most previous of all
Lets live in love, heed the call.”
Andy, whose birth name is Keith Anderson, stamped his class early with recordings like Too Experienced, Desperate Lover, My Time, Unchained, Let Them Say, and the anthemic repatriation song I’ve Got To Go Back Home, all done in glowing, flowing poetry at Studio One in the mid-’60s. Additionally, Andy set Marcia Griffith on the road to success with Feel Like Jumping, Melody Life, Mark My Word, and Truly, while Delroy Wilson and Ken Boothe benefited from It’s Impossible and I Don’t Want To See You Cry, respectively. In answer to a question I posed to the songwriting genius concerning his reluctance to freely accept the endless praises heaped on him, he said: “I must really start accepting the credits these people are giving me for writing because a lot of times I am so modest, but I really set out to craft these songs because they were going to represent me for life.”
The flood of conscious lyrics that infiltrated the Jamaican music landscape came also from other artistes, so numerous that we can mention only a few, with no disrespect intended to the unnamed ones.
CLASSIC ALBUMS
Bob Marley was certainly not as poetic as Andy but would certainly head the list of conscious songwriters. Eight classic albums for Island Records between 1973 and 1980 ignited the world of reggae music. As I see it, they depicted revolution, prophesy, recipes for international racial harmony, and romantic love. Revolution from Marley’s third album with the label, Natty Dread, conveyed Marley’s stance on the impact of that particular subject, while Redemption Song and We and Them from the Uprising album, Survival and Babylon System from Survival, and Who the Cap Fit from the album Rastaman Vibration conveyed a message of hope that inspired the resilience that many needed to survive.
Marley’s son, Damian (Jr Gong), followed closely in his father’s footsteps with several top-class acts – the Welcome to Jamrock and Stony Hill albums being outstanding. The lyrics from Slave Mill, taken from the latter album, convey the message that not much has changed since the days of slavery:
“Sad to see the old slave mill is grinding slow, but grinding still Walking home, ah you get killed Police free to shoot at will.”
Peter Tosh’s triple – Get Up Stand Up, Equal Rights and Justice, and Buckingham Palace – reveals his uncompromising stance on matters of injustice, while Gregory Isaacs’ 1977 album Mr. Isaacs reveals the atrocities meted out to the less fortunate. In the cut
Sacrifice, he sings:
“I was given as a sacrifice to build a black man’s hell and a white man’s paradise
But now that I know
It’s time I’ve got to go
The proceedings seems so painful and so slow.”
Luciano seemed to have made conscious songs his speciality with cuts like It’s Me Again Jah, Who Could It Be, There’s No Love In The World, Heaven Help Us All, Carry Jah Load, Over The Hills and Lord Give Me Strength, in which he chants:
“Lord give me strength to face another day
Carry on life’s road, carry my heavy load
Give me strength, oh Jah, to tarry on
Oh my Lord.”
Ernie Smith was particularly ruthless against the establishment in the 1970s as he sang: “As we fight one another for the power and the glory, Jah Kingdom goes to waste. We di people want fi know just where we’re going. Right now we hands are tied.” This he expressed in the recording We De People/The Power and The Glory. It earned for Smith a banned song and a flight to a distant land.
Around the turn of the 1960s decade, Jimmy Cliff recorded Many Rivers To Cross and, a little over a decade later, Treat The Youths Right, adding to a plethora of Jamaican recordings aimed at making a positive impact on the psyche of the nation. Also about this time, Dennis Brown’s Handwriting On The Wall and Wolf and Leopards pointed to the warning signs of imminent disaster.