Contents - Beth Lesser

I dreamed last night I was in the White House,
Ronald Reagan say him catch crab louse,
His wife, Nancy, she wan’ sex me,
She just a stare pon me long cockie,
(chorus) I slept with the president’s daughter and his wife,
When I done fire off, I have to run for me life.
Lone Ranger, in his later sanitized incarnation, carried the same writing
style into his culture and reality lyrics. Choosing each word carefully, but
spicing it with some scat, like the popular ‘right’ and ‘ribbit’, he created a new
hybrid style that came to dominate the dancehall world.
Ranger’s lyrics were no longer spontaneous outpourings, driven by the
beat. They were written for presentation, as carefully as any song. When he
left the slackness field, Ranger took his composing style with him and began
writing deejay lyrics for the dance that fit the format of a song. They were twothree
minutes in length, had a chorus, a bridge and a few verses.
The lyrics to Ranger’s hit ‘Love Bump’ were originally Ringo’s. But Ranger
took the idea and polished it, using all of General Echo’s best loved devises
– impersonation, exaggeration, humor – and carefully constructed a funny
story that was safe for the whole family.
The gal say she wan’ go show!
Take her to the show that she wanted to go
Nuff entertainment, Nuff excitement
Little after that she say, she want refreshment!
(croons) A whe’ you give your daughter, Lone Ranger, a whe’ you give
the daughter?
(deejays) Ice mint and ice water (Rasta me did bruk!)
Ice mint (? unsure of lyric) and ice water - kiss me neck!
When me reach home, she back her cutlass
(Angry girl voice) Me gwan have fe kill you cause you nearly mek me
dead with gas!!
Ranger recalls, “It was comedy. In those days, when we were writing our
lyrics, we put a little humor in it too.” In the ‘80s, people began to demand
humor from their deejays, and to comply, deejays began to take more care in
writing complete, coherent lyrics. Deejays like Josie Wales, Charlie Chaplin,
General Trees, Early B, Lt. Stitchie, Peter Metro and Yellowman came up
with fairly complex stories, full of fantasy, imaginative scenarios, jokes and
punch lines. Even later, came men like Tiger and Professor Nuts who staked
their careers on being funny. Deejays were coming to the dance prepared with
prewritten scripts and not much freelancing was heard anymore.
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