Dole queue reggae with a message (Signing Off - UB40)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Signing Off - UB40
Date:	06/07/04 (407 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant band, album, and songs

Disadvantages: A one off

Most of the 2 Tone era bands were hyper energetic dance bands, deeply ingrained with a love of Ska and Bluebeat and stomping the night away. Dexys Midnight Runners at one end of the spectrum, fronted by the EGO of Kevin Rowland were avowedly a soul band, with passionate romance in their hearts (Searching for the young soul rebels, indeed) before they became gypsies with Come On Eileen.

Over on the other wing, there was the dub and loping, smooth reggae sounds and political comment of Birmingham?s UB40. Even the name was a STATEMENT writ large of a band who cared, in a deeply passionate way for their fellow men. They cared less for the intense fashion sense and front of many of their friends and colleagues and were pretty faceless and anonymous, but they managed to carve out a lengthy career in the charts, even though a lot of the latter success was owed to blanded out sounds and cover versions (Red Red Wine).

In the beginning, however, when they emerged on Bob Lamb?s local Graduate Records and they were championed by John Peel they mattered in an awfully BIG way, with smooth skank sounds, classy, distant vocals and a lovely dub reggae feel.

Their debut album, Signing Off, was released in September 1979 and stayed on the charts for a staggering 71 weeks. The cover art was based on the unemployment benefit card from which the band take their name. It was an excellent piece of work, combining a soulful and rootsy dub feel with political lyrics to create a very satisfying and effective whole.

There was a whole slew of memorable songs on the album and as a whole it was a truly memorable debut offering, although it was as much the freebie extra songs included on the 12 inch single which accompanied the original LP which really c
aught them in full flight, a genuine British reggae band, authentic and special, in much the same way as Steel Pulse were, sounds from the British street, spliced through with punk subject matter and sensibilities.

Signing Off was a masterpiece of its genre, as distinctive as anything in the post punk era, classy and cool, where the Specials were manic and driving. UB40 were very very different and very very lovely.

The album was ushered in by the breathtaking double A-side single King/Food For Thought which was a refreshing, boozy blast of romance and politics which was probably UB40?s ultimate statement.

From the land of shadows
Comes a dreadful sight
Lady with the marble smile
Spirit of the night
See the scourge of innocence
Swinging in her hand
Hear the silent suffering
That echoes through the land

From the tombs of ignorance
Of hate and greed and lies
Through the smoke of sacrifice
Watch her figure rise
The sick the poor the old
Basking in her radiance
Men of blood and gold


In her bloody footsteps
Speculators prance
Men of dreams are praying
For that second chance
Round her vacant features
Gilded serpents dance
Her tree of evil knowledge
Sprouts a special branch


Madam Medusa
Madam Medusa
Madam Medusa


Knock her right down
And then she bounce right back
Knock her right down
And then she bounce right back
She gone off her head
We`ve got to shoot her dead
She gone off her head
We`ve got to shoot her dead
Run for your life before she eat you alive
Run for your life before she eat you alive
Move out of the way cos`s you`re blocking out the d
ay
Move out of the way cos`s you`re blocking out the day

Madam Medusa

Track listing

Tyler
King
12 Bar
Burden of Shame
Adella
I Think It?s Going to Rain Today
25%
Food For Thought
Little By Little
Signing Off
Madam Medusa
Strange Fruit
Reefer Madness


For all the quality of their own songs and their powerful sentiment, it was the stark and sinister reworking of Billie Holliday?s Strange Fruit which was the stand out track for me, evoking always the feeling of To Kill A Mockingbird and Mississipi Burning, with its eerie feel and late night mood. It?s a killer track, capturing the UB40 magic perfectly, one of my favourite songs of all time. If they had never made another song, that one alone would have made them forever a part of my memory.

Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.


Here is a fruit for the crow to pluck
For the rain to wither, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop.


Brothers Robin (lead guitar) and Ali Campbell (guitar, lead vocals), bassist Earl Falconer, keyboardist Mickey Virtue, saxophonist Brian Travers, drummer Jim Brown, percussionist Norman Hassan, and toaster Astro.


I bloody loved UB40 before they sold out ? they seemed likely to be a band
who would never sell out (although they did eventually), who could make wonderful songs (which they stopped doing) and killer albums (which they couldn?t repeat). A bad case of what might have been, but for Food For Thought and Strange Fruit, I could forgive anything.

It was the pulsing, gorgeous rhythms and feel of Falconer and Brown which made UB40, overlain with the sleazy sax lines of Travers, all rounded off with the clipped, understated vocals ? truly a class act.

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