One Drop Twenty-Four

Lie down gal, make me push it up, push it up...

As a musical style, reggae has always pushed at the boundaries of lyrical acceptability, and Max Romeo’s saucy 1968 single Wet Dream was banned widely from radio stations for its lyrical content. However, Max was much more than a maker of risque novelty hits, and shifted gear to more political and social themes. His greatest LP War Ina Babylon, recorded with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, yielded the magnificent (and much-sampled) song Chase the Devil. Max’s versatility is mirrored by Stephen Watt’s feature poem Never Trust A Man Who Doesn’t Dance To Ska which traces the development of broad musical styles and cultural trends, before setting out the unchanging and unchallengeable position of the poem’s title.

We also feature a couple of ska classics, and the Max Romeo song which lent him his initial notoriety, finishing with an elegy for Max.

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Never Trust A Man Who Doesn’t Dance To Ska

I’ve placed my faith in French cinematographers,
widescreen altars, 
an endless franchise of Star Wars
and shoddily filmed Hammer Horrors
as a means of motion gratification.
  	I’ve delved into books by bourgeois authors,
	paragons of honour
	living in the top bedside drawer
	when beneaththebedmonsters
	have pilfered my own imagination.

I’ve trusted in gym-hungry dieticians,
figure-hugging statisticians,
the gospel quotes of electricians
and even the occasional politician
when the haircut borders on mod.
	I’ve indulged in harmless superstitions,
	witnessed apparitions
	when I’ve missed my medication.
	My friends had their reservations
	when I mistook our Alsatian as God

but just as synthesizers plugged into Yamahas 
and Joe vanished to rock the Casbah,
I swore to never trust a man who doesn’t dance to ska.

I’ve pledged confidence in wacky bass and groovy horns,
the breakneck pace where coffee was born,
a two-tone race that is willingly multiform,
reggae to rocksteady, dub to punk.
In the beats of electronic persuasion,
in the anarchists from a blank generation,
in the rude boys reckless reputations,
Paisley patterns had both the riddim and the funk

and just as standing ovations were given
to Jamaicans for donating to the world
a knack for melodic algebra,
we would never trust a man who didn’t dance to ska.

So thank you Prince Buster, Bryon Lee and the Dragonaires,
The Skatalites, Bad Manners, Bob Marley and the Wailers,
The Specials, The Beat, The Selector, The Soul Vendors,
The Ethiopians, The Amphetameanies, and The Toasters,
because otherwise my bedroom posters 
could forever bid my childhood bonsoir
if I was never able to trust in men who knew how to dance to ska.

Stephen Watt

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Desmond Dekker and the Cherry Pies and King of Ska sounding effervescent and joyful

Byron Lee and the Dragonaires play Jamaican Ska with some great early 60s dance moves. Don’t you wish you could be there?

Max Romeo’s uncompromisingly saucy Wet Dream

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Elegy for Max Romeo

They say the Devil came to you
in a dream, talking of Babylon,
forcing from you a song you
didn’t want to sing. Sing it now,
sing that Devil into outer space.

Andy Jackson

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