10cc - “Dreadlock Holiday”
On one level the ‘plot’ of “Dreadlock Holiday” is hugely important to any judgement of it. On another, not at all, but let’s recap anyway. The narrator is a tourist in Jamaica - he gets mugged for his silver chain and returns to the comfort of his hotel where a woman tries to sell him weed.
Nobody comes out of the story well: the song’s parent album was called Bloody Tourists, and the narrator is a simp, trying and failing to fit in (“concentrating on truckin’ right”) and then fleeing to the hotel at the first sign of trouble. But the island isn’t exactly a welcoming place either, and the message seems to be that if you’re a white tourist, any approach is misguided and nowhere is entirely safe from the scary dark other looking to hustle you at every turn.
This, to my mind, makes for a rather mean-spirited song, a lose-lose game whose main purpose is to make 10cc seem clever and cynically realistic. I haven’t ever been a great fan of 10cc, precisely because I feel there’s this callous smirk behind a lot of their music, and “Dreadlock Holiday” crystallises the feeling for me. That makes me dislike it more than whatever racial or cultural politics might or might not lurk underneath the song: I am sure an extensive comments thread will tease them out!
On the other hand, “Dreadlock Holiday” is often superlative popcraft: that shimmering, unmistakable percussion intro that makes the song a sampler’s or mash-up act’s dream, and the massive chorus - seized on out of context by Sky Sports for an effect darkly comic enough that I’m sure the band enjoy it greatly. Even here, though, the cynicism runs deep. The song, light reggae which slides skilfully from awkward bounce to clammy paranoia, is an inversion of the lyrics’ theme: if you want to be a tourist, it says, stick to the studio and you can happily steal stuff from them. “Dreadlock Holiday” is in some ways the unpleasant opposite of 1978’s other reggae-related #1, “Uptown Top Ranking” - a wiser, crueller denial of its open celebration. Impressive work in its way, but it leaves a nasty taste. 4
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Chris Brown on August 10th, 2008
Waldo, I appreciate what you’re saying here, but I think possibly it’s a generational thing. Which possibly won’t affect tomorrow’s kids. Also, though, I think it’s a lot easier to push that “offensive” button when the material is weak, which I think this is. See also Typically Tropical, obviously.
I would quite like to hear ‘I Don’t Like Croquet’ though.
LondonLee on August 10th, 2008
What Chris said, I understand what they’re trying to say with the song and don’t think it’s racist (or at least not intentionally) but it’s just done so cack-handedly that it doesn’t comes off. Instead of the social commentary they probably intended they sound like a bunch of smug rich white rock stars taking the piss out of Jamaicans and their culture.
SteveM on August 10th, 2008
It’s never sounded like that to me. Like you say I think they believed thir intentions were good and fans of the song settle for that. Basically I overlook the uglier aspects of DH pretty much the same way I overlook sentiments I disagree with or feel uneasy about in some Jamaican dance music that I enjoy on the same casual level.
But essentially the problem with Waldo’s argument is that it assumes a level playing field when we must all surely acknowledge that even in a crucial time when punks jumped up to meet dreads halfway this has never really been the case in this country to a lasting extent, even if the pop charts have occasionally suggested a greater balance of cultural understanding and harmony over the years. Hypothetical ‘but if Aswad did the equivalent’ counter is just silly because we KNOW it would never have happened and probably never will.
FT's Pete Baran on August 10th, 2008
And to be vaguely equivalent it would probably have to be done as finger-in-the-ear folk or perhaps a Gilbert and Sullivan pastiche (admittedly this hypothetical track is just getting better and better).
As a kid I was never quite sure why it was called Dreadlock Holiday, there are no dreads mentioned directly in the song.
Billy Smart on August 10th, 2008
Did the Clash ever write a song inspired by their experience of recording ‘Complete Control’ with Lee Scratch Perry in Jamaica? It was apparently an alarming experience for them.
Pete on August 10th, 2008
Not that I know of, though arguably they did record their own version of Dreadlock Holiday in Rock The Casbah.
will on August 10th, 2008
Isn’t Safe European Home about Strummer and Jones’s trip to Jamaica the previous year, when they apparently hardly left their hotel room?
FT's Lena on August 10th, 2008
I didn’t hear this at the time at all - if you’d asked me about 10cc I would have said “Oh they did “The Things We Do For Love” and I haven’t heard a thing since.” But I was in the US…where “Grease” and “Boogie Oogie Oogie” were the big hits, later in the summer, after The Commodores…
…when I did finally hear this, it sounded kind of lightweight and pleasant, but my mind was being blown on an almost regular basis (this was around ‘82) by other things, so it didn’t really stick out in any way - much like “Banana Republic” by the Boomtown Rats - I remember the music much better than the words.
mike on August 11th, 2008
Those “Safe European Home” lyrics in full: http://londonsburning.org/lyr_give_em_enough_rope.html
“Every white face is an invitation to robbery.”
“I’d stay and be a tourist but I can’t take the gunplay.”
Waldo on August 11th, 2008
I see with sadness that the Umpire has given Isaac Hayes the raised finger. I guess this means Isaac going into his local cemetery, pointing at a vacant plot and delivering the classic line:
“Can you dig it?”
Erithian on August 11th, 2008
Apparently this is about an incident when Graham Gouldman was on holiday with Justin Hayward out of the Moody Blues - but Hayward had been threatened, not mugged, and it was in Barbados, not Jamaica…
mike on August 11th, 2008
Dammit, I was offered an interview with Justin Hayward last week but turned it down. I could have asked him!
DJ Punctum on August 11th, 2008
Was this why he went off summer and wished it was “Forever Autumn”?
*tumbling tumbleweeds, getting of coat, &c.*
Waldo on August 11th, 2008
Mike - Why did you turn Justin down? Were you offered Frank Ifield instead?
mike on August 11th, 2008
No, I was actually offered the ALL NEW FOR 2008! version of The Drifters, none of whose members were in the group before this year. And some WWF dude whose name I have already forgotten. I went instead with a young man who won’t be troubling Popular for many years to come. (But not wishing to tweak any whiskers, I shall, um, exit this instant…)
vinylscot on August 11th, 2008
I think I’d have gone for Justin!
Billy Smart on August 11th, 2008
Thanks Will and Mike - I think that the Clash certainly win the ’songs about being mugged in Jamaica’ battle!
FT's Lena on August 11th, 2008
“Summer Night City,” “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and “Hong Kong Garden” are all also on this chart - besides the big US songs they are practically the only ones I recognize! I looked up another song (anticipating its appearing on the charts in about three months’ time) only to find out it wasn’t a single in the UK at all, which I find baffling, as it was a US R&B #1! Same ocean, different shores, etc. etc…
Mark G on August 11th, 2008
.. which means you have bunny clearance…
DJ Punctum on August 11th, 2008
Re. Smiley Culture - I remember Simon Bates playing “Police Officer” on his show one morning, and a few minutes later reading out a message from a listener who told him to “stop playing this monkey music.” He didn’t comment. That was the kind of audience Radio 1 attracted in the Derek Chinnery days.
Judge Dread? Big mate of Prince Buster, Lee Perry, Bob Marley and others; also pretty big in Jamaica. Went a bit Sid James in Dub Conference for my liking later on but “Big Six” and “Big Seven” still stand up pretty well.
FT's Lena on August 11th, 2008
HEE!
“Got To Be Real” by Cheryl Lynn, which I was hoping to transcribe and then say Billy M heard it, but I don’t know if he ever did.
The beginning of Smash Hits is just around the corner, as well.
DJ Punctum on August 11th, 2008
First Billboard R&B number one of ‘79 as it happens and looking at that year’s list it really IS the beginning of everything (as with everything else in that exceptional year but enough for now, let’s wait until we get there)…
Erithian on August 11th, 2008
Lena #71 - and didn’t Smash Hits begin with a pretty unlikely cover star for a magazine which wanted to build an audience? - Plastic Bertrand, whose unforgettable one-and-only hit entered the chart in the same week as John and Livvy IIRC. Plastic was one of the two giants of Belgian chanson alongside Jacques Brel (as I used to say to a Belgian friend mainly to wind her up) and went on to be the producer of Belgian Idol.
DJ Punctum on August 11th, 2008
They won in the end, though, didn’t they?
Furthermore you’re being disingenuous - that issue was a test issue (I mean, a Sham 69 centre spread?) and the first issue proper had Blondie on the front.
vinylscot on August 11th, 2008
The Cheryl Lynn track was/is brilliant - one of my favourite 12″s from around this time! I hadn’t realised it had missed the charts altogether.
I see it did briefly visit the lower reaches twice in 1996, as one side of two double a-side singles which came out then. They reached the dizzying heights of #117 and #191. I’ve no idea if these were remixes, but unfortunately they probably were.
mike on August 11th, 2008
Those very early issues of Smash Hits weren’t great, it has to be said (I was vaguely embarrassed about buying them) - but it didn’t take very long for the mag to hit its stride, either. (Ooh, I’m straining at the leash!)
mike on August 11th, 2008
#75 - it was a 12″ reissue of the original track, double A-sided with another classic whose name escapes me (but it might have been Nicole & Timmy Thomas “New York Eyes”). I shall root around in the attic this evening…
Anyhow, it was part of a series of double A-sided classic 12″ re-issues, many of which I snapped up.
EDIT: I am WRONG! The Old Gold reissues were 1991, but “New York Eyes” was teamed with Cheryl Lynn’s “Encore”. The 1996 version was indeed a remix package, including mixes from Todd Terry and dreary old workaday hacks Love To Infinity…
Mark G on August 11th, 2008
Those early Smash hits were great, actually.
The very idea that all this punk and new wave could actually be sold to the teenypop audience, was what kept one end of it alive! It all moved from that to the bright fluffy 80s pop we all remember on those TV shows if we’re famous enough, as a direct result of pic sleeves, which begat pop videos and an outpouring of creativity in many directions.
The words to The Fall’s “New Face in Hell” in the alternative page, for blummin sake!
mike on August 11th, 2008
#78: Mark, I’m talking about the first three or four issues only, which I think were still monthly at that stage. The cool specialist alternative coverage hadn’t started yet, and the mag was more like a glossied-up Disco 45.
DJ Punctum on August 11th, 2008
“Got To Be Real” unfortunately was also the musical inspiration for Modern Romance’s 1982 #37 smash “Queen Of The Rapping Scene (Nothing Ever Goes The Way You Plan)” though I much preferred its use on “Dibidibidize (How We Gonna Make The Black Nation Rise?)” the same year by oh God what was their name again? Brother D and the Collective Effort, or similar…
Mark G on August 11th, 2008
Yep to you both.
Although, the pre-rap part of the song was one of the few ModRo songs I thought was OK. Perhaps because it was short.
o sobek! on August 11th, 2008
“unfortunately”?????????????
mike on August 11th, 2008
Brother D and the Collective Effort, yes! Thank you for unlocking that memory, as I’ve been trying to remember who sampled “Got To Be Real” for the past couple of hours or so, and the closest I could get was the original 1986 Source/Candi Staton version of “You Got The Love”, which didn’t.
“Um the quinn, um the quinn, um the quinn of the reppin sin” was sort of great, really!
FT's Malice Cooper on August 11th, 2008
This even got a release in Jamaica and sold well so I don’t think they found it racist or offensive. It isn’t like anybody got shot in the song.
wichita lineman on August 11th, 2008
I remember everyone straining at the leash to write about 1978 a few entries back… now look at us, thinking about the early Smash Hits heyday when they’d print the lyrics to New Face In Hell… what ‘78 were people looking forward to? I am kurious.
Malice, surely 10CC’s reputation was shot? No hits for Stewart or Gouldman after this apart from Bridge To Your Heart some years later. Even though Sunburn deserved better.
Waldo on August 12th, 2008
# 70 - Dread (Alex Hughes) had also been a minder/roadie to the Stones before his own career took off. He was indeed huge in Jamaica, in fact the first white artist to score a major hit there. He was simply enormous in my area where he was feted in the rasta community as practically one of their own. He cultivated close friendships with many of reggae’s great names and left this world (albeit far too early) as he surely would have wanted to, keeling over from a dodgy strawb having just walked off stage at the end of a show.
I think I recall the “monkey music” incident but wouldn’t have remembered it was Simon Bates, who, let’s face it, had the personality of a roll of wall-paper. The listener must have conveyed this despicable comment over the phone. It’s not even worthy of comment and if Bates’ silence was deliberate, I feel that that was far better than going into one about how ignorant this bastard clearly was.
Snif on August 12th, 2008
And Judge Dread’s name appears (in slightly different guise) to this day in every weekly issue of 2000AD, which had only just recently started at this stage…?
DJ Punctum on August 12th, 2008
“Big Seven” also sampled on “Ludi” by the Dream Warriors.
Waldo on August 12th, 2008
“The Winkle Man” was blinding. You can see where Dread’s going with this without even having to hear the record, which you certainly would not have done on Radio One.
DJ Punctum on August 12th, 2008
I always loved it when Jimmy Savile came across a Judge Dread disc on his Old Record Club: “and this guy geezer decided to be very rude and so it was banned and I SEE-NO-REEEEEEA-SONNNNN why we should play it and howzabout that then?”
Dignified Don: “skrlrlgrglmrglkrnklskrlkmmngskrl Jim.”
Tom on August 12th, 2008
#87 - 2000AD was well over a year old by this point - started in February 1977.
Tim on August 12th, 2008
[Judge Dread was] the first white artist to score a major hit [in Jamaica]? Really? I’m amazed!
mike on August 12th, 2008
So, it would seem that “Dreadlock Holiday”, Boney M’s “Rivers Of Babylon” and Judge Dread were all Big In Jamaica. Where’s the JA version of Everyhit when you need it?
Mark G on August 12th, 2008
92, I somehow doubt this, this’d mean that no Elvis/rock and roll/Beatles etc had any kind of inroad into Jamaica.
Waldo on August 12th, 2008
Yes, correction. Dread was the first white artist to have a major REGGAE hit in Jamaica.
Sorry.
wichita lineman on August 12th, 2008
Ob La Di Ob La Da was big in Jamaica. I’d say it’s the Beatles’ most common Jamaican pressing, having never seen another Jamaican Beatles single.
It’s worth picking up because the b-side is Sexy Sadie, a unique and intreeeging pairing.
Of course the question is… is it reggae?
FT's Conrad on August 12th, 2008
79, Smash Hits initially presented itself as primarily a place where you could read all the songwords to the latest hits. So, as a songwords mag, there wasn’t a great deal of editorial to begin with.
And it was also monthly to start with - both these things changed quickly.
Billy Smart on August 17th, 2008
Incidentally, the date for this entry is still wrong, I note pedantically.
Mark Wadsworth on August 30th, 2008
May I point out that this song has a ‘truck driver’s gear change’ half-way through, i.e. it shifts up a key totally unnecessarily at the end of the middle eight?