Jimmy Cliff: The Harder They Come (Soundtrack)
1972
Island Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl and Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. Jimmy Cliff: You Can Get It If You Really Want 2. Scotty: Draw Your Brakes 3.The Melodians: Rivers of Babylon 4. Jimmy Cliff: Many Rivers to Cross 5. Toots and the Maytals: Sweet and Dandy 6. Jimmy Cliff: The Harder They Come 7. The Slickers: Johnny Too Bad 8. Desmond Dekker: 007 (Shanty Town) 9. The Maytals: Pressure Drop 10. Jimmy Cliff: Sitting in Limbo 11. Jimmy Cliff: You Can Get It If You Really Want 12. Jimmy Cliff: The Harder They Come
Hey, I drew a picture of the pie up in the sky waiting for me when I die...
...So I have that to look forward to...
Anyway, this isn't technically a Jimmy Cliff album, it's actually a compilation of various artists, but since his name is written in really big letters across the top of the cover, I file it under the Jimmy Cliff section... This is the 1972 soundtrack for the film of the same name, that starred Jimmy as a reggae-singing criminal...
I picked up this record sometime in the 90's, and it functioned as my gateway into Jamaican music, and you can't ask for a better introduction,...To this day, I don't know of a better reggae album, whoever complied this did the most outstanding job ever. The only criticism I can muster is the odd choice of putting "You Can Get It If You Really Want" and "The Harder They Come" on the album twice, but screw it, I'll hear 'em twice...
Highlights are hard to pick out, but I'm going with the two Toots and the Maytals selections...The minute I first put this album on, the Maytals became one of my all-time favorite bands...They're noticeably rougher than the other artists...Their music pounds and grinds, and Toots sings in a gorgeously guttural voice that somehow makes everything he sound jubilant and uplifting...Plus "Sweet and Dandy" introduced me to the phrase "Cola Wine." I'm not quite sure what it means, but I like it...Isn't mixing wine and cola a thing now? Let me google it real quick and I'll get back to you...
Here it is...You can make your own bottle of Cola-Wine...
1 1/4 liters of Cola...
1 bottle
red wine...
Vigorously mix together in a 1 gallon serving jar and marvel at the resulting explosion. Serve chilled over ice. Vomit gently into a Spanish gutter...
I honestly can't choose between "Pressure Drop" and "Sweet and Dandy." I guess we're going to have to listen to them both...
"Sweet and Dandy"
"Pressure Drop"
Another song that never fails to leave my head, once it gets in there, is the Slickers' "Johnny Too Bad." Lyrically menacing, yet so sweet-sounding...
I also love "Rivers of Babylon" by the Melodians. This song couldn't be more lovely...Beautiful harmony singing by the group over lyrics that come from a couple of biblical psalms...Psounds pso Pstupendous..I've met a couple people now who only know this from the Sublime cover and when I point them to the direction of the original, they flip over how much better it is..Check it out for yourself...
Since this is under the Jimmy Cliff heading, I better talk about one of his songs...They're all good, but I don't think I'd be alone in saying that "Many Rivers to Cross" is the real classic here...If you've never heard Jimmy before, I guess the best way I can describe his singing is comforting and umm...womanly...He sounds like how you wish your Mother would have sounded singing lullabies to you, and this is best demonstrated on "Many Rivers to Cross." Okay, I'm going to share a personal moment here...I remember a particularly lonely December night, I had locked myself alone in my bedroom to spin a couple of records and chose this one...I sat on my bed and watched the snow fall serenely onto the ground from my second story window as "Many Rivers to Cross" played in the background...The white of the snow starkly contrasted by the deep black night...It was one of those moments where you're playing the right song in the right moment...It seems unlikely that a song recorded in sunny Jamaica fit a deep-freeze Michigan night so well, but that's the magic of music...So its song has always held a special place for me...
Oh yea, I forgot to mention why I bought this record in the first place...Honestly, the reason I picked this up was because of a phrase someone wrote on the cover with a pen...
"Revolution '83-Germany July '83"
I'm a huge fan of personalized records...You've seen a couple examples earlier (notably in the AC/DC: Highway to Hell" post) and you'll see this more and more as the blog goes on, but this is my favorite example. What a perfect phrase! I've stolen it on many occasions...I released an album under the name, I've written songs with the title, and have done countless allusions towards it, such as the first album I recorded with TA-80 2001's "80-83"...
I don't really know what it means, but this is how I picture it:Somewhere in Germany during 1983 a music fan finds a decade-old copy of "The Harder They Come" and is so moved by the revolutionary spirit of the record they can't help but scrawl "Revolution '83" across the cover...Awesome!
I've always been a fanatic for the inserts they used to put into records showing you the other albums available for sale...This one was particularly appealing to me...I'd made it my goal to own every one of these albums...I haven't wholly succeeded but I'm not as far off as I used to be...
I'm especially intrigued by the "Mutant Disco" record but have never ran across it...Amazing album cover...Apparently there's a lot of Was (Not Was) on it...
That Excalibur" soundtrack looks pretty nifty too...
Here's the other side of the insert, minus the bottom row...My scanner is really tiny and I'm too cheap to buy another one...Oh well...I'm done scanning pictures...Let's check out "The Harder They Come" by Jimmy Cliff...Enjoy...
In keeping with the spirit of the album, I'm going to post the same video for "The Harder They Come" twice, for no reason at all...Enjoy again...
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