PEOPLE FUNNY BOY

Why, Why, People funny boy?

Why, Why, People funny boy?
Now that you reach the top
And you turn big shot
All I have done for you
You not remember that
When you were down and out
I used to help you out
But now that you win jackpot
You don't remember that
Now that you turn big shot
Boy you  have big chat
You're lucky, You're lucky, You're lucky,

To have rice and peas a' yard

But me, Poor me, Don't have none at all

I want-a, I want-a, I want-a

NOTE:  So many thoughts concerning this big subject song, which I love. Looping a bawling baby’s cries and using them as percussion is genius, but enduringly popular as Scratch’s anthem has been, it is often described as near-doggerel -- simply bitter commentary by a mistreated, cheated Studio One employee – rather than the rallying cry it is opposing & chanting down the human condition.  Graham Greene would understand. Morrissey also. (Think about England Made Me and You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby).  A record producer I know says “anyone can sing” and today with vocal tuning I suppose that’s true.  But non-singing vocalist Perry seizes the day by not nibbling around the edges of notes, but devouring the musical scenery instead.  Perry is on the side of the angels. The Devil Came From Kansas.

Lee “Scratch” Perry: People Funny Boy (Link)

SOMETHING IN THE AIR

A half-wit king content to renounce the affairs of State for the pleasures of the hunt; a queen, intelligent and unscrupulous in the exercise of her unlimited control over both king and country; an incompetent playboy raised to the dignity of Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four after a brief career as a guardsman, at one and the same time both the Queen’s lover and the King’s favourite – these were the guardians of the divine right of kings at a time when the principle of legitimacy was challenged by an ex-corporal dethroning half the monarchs of Europe.  The poison of ‘dangerous ideas’ expressed in the fashion of majaism was destroying the old moral order at its roots, even before the new forces were strong enough to replace it.

F.D. Klingender, Goya In The Democratic Tradtion (“The Caprichos” chapter), London, Sidgwick and Jackson, Ltd., 1948. 

Bruce Nauman artworks, 1985. 

Thunderclap Newman: Something In The Air, 1969 (Link)