"
Police & Thieves" is a well known
reggaeReggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s.While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is based...
songA song is a metrical composition intended or adapted for singing, especially one in rhymed stanzas; a lyric; a ballad....
, first recorded in the Jamaican reggae style by the falsetto singer
Junior MurvinJunior Murvin is a Jamaican reggae artist. He is best known for the classic single "Police and Thieves", produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry in 1976.-Career:...
in 1976 (
IslandIsland Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in England for many years, but is now owned by Universal Music Group and is operated in the United States through The Island Def Jam Music Group and in the UK through Island Records Group...
WIP 6316), and one year later in a punk-reggae version by the
The ClashThe Clash were an English rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk rock. Along with punk, they experimented with reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap and rockabilly...
.
The song was written by Murvin and the man who originally produced the song, Lee "Scratch" Perry. The studio band was jamming and Murvin was playing with words at Perry's
Black Ark Studio when suddenly sound, rhythm, melody and lyrics appeared in a structured form and Perry decided to record the song the same afternoon.
"
Police & Thieves" is a well known
reggaeReggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s.While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is based...
songA song is a metrical composition intended or adapted for singing, especially one in rhymed stanzas; a lyric; a ballad....
, first recorded in the Jamaican reggae style by the falsetto singer
Junior MurvinJunior Murvin is a Jamaican reggae artist. He is best known for the classic single "Police and Thieves", produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry in 1976.-Career:...
in 1976 (
IslandIsland Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in England for many years, but is now owned by Universal Music Group and is operated in the United States through The Island Def Jam Music Group and in the UK through Island Records Group...
WIP 6316), and one year later in a punk-reggae version by the
The ClashThe Clash were an English rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk rock. Along with punk, they experimented with reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap and rockabilly...
.
The song was written by Murvin and the man who originally produced the song, Lee "Scratch" Perry. The studio band was jamming and Murvin was playing with words at Perry's
Black Ark Studio when suddenly sound, rhythm, melody and lyrics appeared in a structured form and Perry decided to record the song the same afternoon. The next day
dubOverdubbing is a technique used by recording studios to add a supplementary recorded sound to a previously recorded performance....
-versions and versions with different lyrics were recorded. The song, about gang war and police brutality, was out on the street in a couple of days and became a big hit in Jamaica. Later on, the song proved to be a bigger sales and club hit in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
than in Murvin's and Perry's native
JamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length and as much as in width, amounting to 11,100 km
2. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harboring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
.
Junior MurvinJunior Murvin is a Jamaican reggae artist. He is best known for the classic single "Police and Thieves", produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry in 1976.-Career:...
's original version can be found on several Lee Perry compilations released or licensed by
Island RecordsIsland Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in England for many years, but is now owned by Universal Music Group and is operated in the United States through The Island Def Jam Music Group and in the UK through Island Records Group...
, including albums
This Is Reggae Music, vol 3 (together with
War Ina Babylon by Max Romeo),
Reggae Greats and
Lee Scratch Perry Arkology.
The
EnglishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
punk rockPunk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band Clash's punk/reggae version appeared on their eponymous
debut albumThe Clash is the first album-length recording released by the English punk rock band The Clash. It was released in two different versions, both of which are still in print: the original version in 1977 and the revised U.S...
. The Clash's version, which is six minutes in length, is an example of a
rock bandRock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
incorporating
reggaeReggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s.While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is based...
into their repertoire.
The song had been a rehearsal room favourite of the band. It had not originally been planned for inclusion on
The Clash, but an impromptu version the band started playing during a break in a recording session, spurred the decision to finalize their own arrangement, record it, and include the finished article on their album.
In the beginning of the song,
Joe StrummerJohn Graham Mellor , better known by his stage name Joe Strummer, was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead singer of the English punk rock band The Clash...
reinterprets the line "They're going through a tight wind" as a tribute to The Ramones, already an established
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
punk band and an influence on The Clash. The lyric line appears in the Ramones' "
Blitzkrieg Bop"Blitzkrieg Bop" is a song by punk rock band The Ramones. The band's inaugural single, it was released in April 1976 in the United States. It was recorded for and appeared as the lead track on the band's first album, Ramones, also released that month....
".
Murvin's version appeared in the 1998 movie
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking BarrelsLock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a 1998 British crime film directed and written by Guy Ritchie. The story is a heist film involving a self-confident young card sharp who loses £500,000 to a powerful crime lord in a rigged game of three card brag...
by
Guy RitchieGuy Stuart Ritchie is an English screenwriter and filmmaker.-Early life:Ritchie was born on 10 September 1968, the second of two children born to John Vivian Ritchie and his first wife, the former Amber Parkinson...
. It was also covered by the group Dubversive in 1997 as a
drum and bassDrum and bass , is a type of electronic dance music which emerged in the mid 1990s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy sub-bass lines...
song and as a reggae version the following year.
The Clash version of the song also appears on the soundtrack for the
Wes AndersonWesley Mortimer Wales "Wes" Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer of features, short films and commercials. He was nominated for a 2001 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Royal Tenenbaums...
film,
The Royal TenenbaumsThe Royal Tenenbaums is a 2001 dramedy film directed by Wes Anderson about three gifted siblings who experience great success in youth, and even greater disappointment and failure after their eccentric father leaves them in their adolescent years...
, and in the
Reno 911!: MiamiReno 911!: Miami is a film based on Comedy Central's Reno 911! directed by cast-member Robert Ben Garant, who plays "Junior." It was released on February 23, 2007...
movie where it is performed by
Dave GrohlDavid Eric Grohl is an American rock musician, singer and songwriter. Grohl began his music career in the 1980s as the drummer for several Washington, D.C., area bands, including the hardcore punk band Scream. In 1990 he became the drummer for grunge group Nirvana...
, who is listed in the credits under the
pseudonymA pseudonym is a fictitious name used by a person, or sometimes, a group.Pseudonyms are often used to hide an individual's real identity, as with writers' pen names, graffiti artists, resistance fighters' or terrorists' noms de guerre and computer hackers' handles. Actors, musicians, and other...
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