1970

BARBWIRE * NORA DEAN * TROJAN 7735 * UK

Almost every body, including myself, who has listened to this record over the last thirty odd years took it to be slack (sexual in content), not least because of the two phrases that Nora Dean uses throughout: "He had barbwire in his underpants" ! and "I lick him hard 'pon his head" ! As it turns out the song was about a mad man that Nora Dean had seen with barbwire on his head! that was changed to barbwire in his underpants on the insistence of engineer Byron Smith. And as is know commonly known 'lick' in Jamaican speak is used for 'hit', so that "I lick him hard 'pon his head" becomes "I hit him hard upon his head" and not the salacious connotation that was normally inferred. 

Set on the You Don't Care rhythm the song was another biggie amongst Skinheads, like other Jamaican records it appealed to them on many levels, one of which, as I have written about before, was the initial ambiguity of the lyrics, in this case the prolonged ambiguity of the song. Many of the words in these and other songs coming out of Jamaica were unfamiliar to audiences with no knowledge of Jamaican speech patterns, while on the other hand familiar words would be used in unfamiliar combinations, this ambiguity of language often gave the song an exotic and mysterious charm that was not to be found in British Popular recordings until, for a brief time, the working classes asserted their own identity during the Punk era in the late 1970s.

It is likely that the original release was intended for the Camel label, CA 44, to be specific, as the blank label pressing with Pama stamped matrix on the record below testifies.

BARBWIRE * NORA DEAN * CAMEL 44 * UK * (UNRELEASED) 

See also:

Let Me Tell You Boy	Wreck A Buddy

RETURN TO THE SKINHEAD / EARLY REGGAE PAGE 1 * PAGE 2