Max Romeo :: Chase the Devil
This is from one of my mom’s favorite records, War Ina Babylon. This song is taking it way back for me. I remember watching the island label on the record spinning around, changing, to my delight, from a lower case i to an exclamation point and back. I must have been two or three. Since she mastered that complicated leap from records to cassettes in 1986, my mother has kept a copy of this album in her car at all times. I know for a fact that it’s there right now. During my elementary school years, I learned every word to this album. I adore it. I would place it higher than Charlotte’s Web and the Care Bears Movie on my nostalgia list. And listening to it now, it’s clear why. Can’t you picture the Muppets dancing to this cute simple music?. There are definitely long legged birds with accordion necks, tropical trees and small monkeys. Perhaps a dread-locked muppet puts on a metal shirt and chases a muppet Satan to outer space?
Riding shotgun in our hatchback Buick Skylark, I would giggle to myself, imagining colorful scenes along with this album, superimposed over the dingy Cleveland highways. I’d make up meanings for the nonsensical lyrics, which sounded a little bit like my Hungarian grandmother’s odd version of English, and ask my mom to explain the more adult themes. She explained to me what a pimp is, the possible benefits of growing your own marijuana, that there are children in the world who go hungry. We were never clear on that War Ina Babylon, though. I love this song in particular, because Max is saying he is personally going to kick Satan’s ass. I appreciate the DIY attitude, and I love the little scrapey noises that punctuate the beat.
Chase the Devil (4.8MB MP3)
Max Romeo (wikipedia)