1973
COW THIEF SKANK * LEE PERRY AND THE UPSETTERS * UPSETTER 398 * UK
Lee Perry himself takes the mike on this extraordinary record, the lyrics of which are about a man who, while in bed with his partner, is alerted to somebody stealing his cows! This could either be: an allegory, a metaphor, a real event, or as it's Lee Perry, something beyond the norms of ordinary categorisation. There is no recourse to the law in this cattle rustling scenario, instead the victim of this shameful act of bovine theft is intent on taking the law into his own hands and, to this end, asks 'Dina' (his companion) to 'pass the machete' gimmie', presumably to attack, or at least frighten off the culprits of this low and base crime against a mans property. All the while this pilfering of Scratch's livestock is going on as he is trying to dress himself and simultaneously keep abreast of events in his corral, there is, to add to the excitement and general confusion, the loud and repeated mooing of the cows themselves! - provided by, of course, none other than Mr President Abraham Reinford Hugh Perry - I ask you what more could you want from a record?
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