“Brown Girl in the Ring” is a traditional Jamaican children’s song that became an international recognized when it was recorded by the Euro-Caribbean group Boney M. in 1978. The track was originally released as the B-side to “Rivers of Babylon,” (the group’s #1 hit at the time) but crept its way up the charts and spent nine weeks in the UK Top 10.
The disco and reggae-infused tune begins in Db and modulates up to D at 2:19.
“It is a testament either to reggae’s amazing elasticity, the sunny music’s universal appeal, or the efficacy of its modern pop co-option that UB40, a racially integrated octet from Birmingham, England, would — in the wake of Bob Marley — become reggae’s longest-running hit machine,” (TrouserPress). “Not to put too fine a point on it: Marley lived only eight years after making the landmark Catch a Fire album; UB40 is already in its third decade of successful employment.
Significantly, UB40 (the official name for a British unemployment form) has built its empire on laid-back covers of soul and pop classics and gentle love songs, not religion and revolution; there isn’t a single item in the UB40 archive with the international social significance of ‘Redemption Song’ or ‘Get Up Stand Up.’ Ultimately, UB40 is loyal not to a culture but to a beat … the band’s formula is mighty steady: recent albums sound enough like early ones that it would be impossible to guess their order of release.”
In 1985, UB40 and The Pretenders’ frontwoman Chrissie Hynde covered Sonny and Cher’s original 1965 original of “I Got You Babe.” The original was Sonny and Cher’s best-performing single, spending three weeks at #1 on the pop charts; the tune went on to become a worldwide smash hit, achieving top 10 chart positions in Europe, Canada, Africa, and Asia. The UB40 cover reached #1 in the UK, but only #28 in the US. It traded the original’s sturdy 12/8 for a effervescent reggae groove that focused on all of the 16th notes in a measure, shot through with electronic percussion. A half-step key change hits at 1:22.
Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for submitting this tune!
After the success of its second album, UK/US-hybrid rock/pop/reggae trio The Police were under orders from their record label to write a hit album (Zenyatta Mondatta). This focus was quite a change from the band’s earlier goals as they were defining their sound — but also different from its later days of almost total artistic freedom as a supergroup.
In a 1982 interview with Creem excerpted on the band’s website, drummer Stewart Copeland recalls the challenges inherent in making the 1980 album: “‘We’ve got to do an album in four weeks we know we can do it, we’ve done it before. But this time it’s going to go straight to number one.’ Whilst we were in the studio, our sales figures were being discussed by people from the record company – and we hadn’t even got the thing on tape, let alone on vinyl. We were very acutely aware, that we were Creating A Product For The Market-place. The market-place was there in the studio with us. It made it a very commercial album, a very slick, clean album that showed we can do that … It’s very difficult to make an album that’s tailor-made to go straight to the top of the charts.”
The frenetic album track “Man in a Suitcase” starts in F major, but after the bridge (1:14 – 1:28) there’s a jump to G major. Many thanks to our frequent contributor JB for this submission!
for Mark
“We Are The People” is featured on the eponymous sixth solo studio album of Ziggy Marley, son of the reggae icon Bob Marley and a prominent singer/songwriter, producer, and philanthropist himself. The lyrics to the tune speak for themselves; key change at 2:43.
AllMusic notes that “Steel Pulse are one of Britain’s greatest reggae bands. Generally a politically minded Rastafarian outfit, it started out playing authentic roots reggae with touches of jazz and Latin music and earned a substantial audience among U.K. punks as well as reggae loyalists.”
From AllMusic’s review of “Ravers” (1978): “…for all its debt to the Jamaican dancehalls, the Birmingham bandmembers don’t so much emulate the current island craze as bend it to their own will…set(ting) the stage with (a) flurried tattoo of militant beats and percussion…only partially soften(ed) with a pulsing bassline. One of the many highlights of Steel Pulse‘s True Democracy album.”
A brief bridge from 2:20 – 2:32 shifts the key from G major to Bb major. As the verses continue to the end, the percussion becomes increasingly free, adding unexpected kicks and tumbling triplets over the otherwise classic reggae feel.
Many thanks to regular contributor JB for submitting this track!
Peter Frampton‘s “Baby, I Love Your Way” was originally released in 1975 as a single, and when it didn’t gain any traction he included it on his live album Frampton Comes Alive the following year, helping the album become a huge hit. The track also appeared in the 2000 movie High Fidelity, performed by Lisa Bonet. The cover featured here, performed by the American reggae/pop band Big Mountain, reached #6 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and #2 on the UK Singles Chart. Key change at 3:16.
“So Lonely” was the third and final single from The Police‘s debut studio album, Outlandos d’ Amour (1978). Bassist and frontman Sting has this to say about the band’s unique sound:
“People thrashing out three chords didn’t really interest us musically. Reggae was accepted in punk circles and musically more sophisticated, and we could play it, so we veered off in that direction. I mean let’s be honest here, ‘So Lonely’ was unabashedly culled from ‘No Woman No Cry’ by Bob Marley & The Wailers. Same chorus. What we invented was this thing of going back and forth between thrash punk and reggae. That was the little niche we created for ourselves.”
AllMusic adds: “Although Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland were all superb instrumentalists with jazz backgrounds, it was much easier to get a record contract in late-’70s England if you were a punk/new wave artist, so the band decided to mask their instrumental prowess with a set of strong, adrenaline-charged rock, albeit with a reggae tinge.”
The video features the not-yet-famous UK trio strolling through Hong Kong and riding around on the Tokyo subway. A whole-step modulation hits at 2:04.
Frequent contributor JB has submitted yet another mod: The Royal Scam, Steely Dan‘s 1976 release, which achieved gold status and reached #15 on the album charts. Hearkening back to the mid-century era when Americans traveled to tropical locations for relatively quick divorces (which required a brief residency by one half of the couple), “Haitian Divorce” showcases the band’s colorful, cynical lyrics at their best.
Ultimate Classic Rock reports that the reggae-infused tune was “reportedly inspired by a recording engineer who asked for time off to fly to the Caribbean nation and obtain a quickie marriage annulment. Intrigued, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker asked for details on his return…” The E major verse transitions to E minor for the chorus at 0:46, then reverting to major at 1:15, etc.
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