We have transcribed the lyrics to a rare 7" 45 RPM single produced by Rainford Hugh Perry at his Black Ark Studio in Kingston, JA.
Say me no like them kind of Comrade Man,
Say me no dig them kind of wicked man.
For I'm a Christian labour man,
And I am a good, good labour man.
I and I goin' beat them Comrade Man,
I and I goin' beat them Comrade Man.
Oh what a pleasant situation, I 'n' I eating!
Comrades talk of confrontation
But labour is our salvation.
I and I goin' beat them Comrade Man,
I and I goin' win them Comrade Man.
Oh ye-a, ye-a, ye-a, oh yea.Mmmm... Alright...
Oh what a happy situation
I and I have found salvation.
Comrades talk of confrontation
But labour is our salvation.
I and I goin' beat them Comrade Man,
I and I goin' win them Comrade Man.Oh ye-a, yea, ye-ah... mmmm
Whip them, whip them,
Win them, win them.
GB release on blank blue label to try and bipass BBC censors
Comments
Nice tune but it doesn't…
Nice tune but it doesn't sound like Junior Byles is singing it. It IS based on his smash hit "Beat Down Babylon" though.
Despite the hits, Byles ended up impoverished and begging on the streets of Kingston. Music business is dutty business even by Babylon's standards.
Of course you're right, that…
Of course you're right, that's not the silky, soulful voice of Junior Byles. That is Chandley aka "Shenley" Duffus. I have a photo of Chandley with The Upsetter. Will change when I figure out how. Not IT savvy and am away from my private secretary. Cheers for pointing out my error Fozzie.
No worries! Nice new photo.
No worries! Nice new photo.
Great you found a link to…
Great, you found a link to the original GB 45.
I appreciate the info. I was…
I appreciate the info. I was curious about this version, Since Junior Byles was a PNP supporter, and part of their musical bandwagon campaign.
I've embedded the video now,…
I've embedded the video now, which was a nice opportunity to listen to the tune again...
Jasonsan wrote: I appreciate…
I posted this tune under the misbelief that it was a critique of Leftist politicism in general. Now I realise that its theme is probably more parochial. It seems likely to me that it is an electoral rallying cry on behalf of the Jamaican Labour Party—"For I'm a Christian Labour man... Win them, win them"—against the newly formed social-democratic Communist Party of Jamaica, which lent its support to the People's National Party.
We can sometimes idolise our musical heroes and interpose our own insights onto their works. I idolised Lee Perry in his lifetime but now think he was just a flat earther, chem trail quack; and jealous to boot, of the "real revolutionary", Bob Marley.
Another musician that worked with Lee Perry who fell prey to poli-trickery was Max Romeo, whose song Rasta Bandwagon was appropriated by the PNP in naming its Musical Bandwagon election campaign. The schism of reggae artists between affiliations to petty political parties of Jamaica, reflecting the wider political schism in the world, was notably commented on by Max Romeo in his Rasta Bandwagon, a nod and a wink at the Musical Bandwagon in support of Manley's PNP, at the formation of the merchant founded Twelve Tribes of Israel, and generally at middle class attempts to dilute working class culture in its own lack of culture.
The impetus for Rasta Bandwagon and the People's National Party's Musical Bandwagon could not be farther apart. Rasta Bandwagon was a rejection of the incorporation of the middle class into Rasta. The Musical Bandwagon was an attempt to appropriate Rasta and channel it into its opposite, the Babylon, capitalist system.
Robert Nestor Marley famously negated the working class emulation of mercantile political schism when he obliged the two opposing politicians of PNP and JLP, Manley and Seaga, to publically clasp hands; a brilliant piece of situationism, and an act which the prophet Marley was prophetically punished in advance for with bullets from political gangsters.
In spite of all divisive tactics we all gonna sing the same song.