The Comedy of Errors: Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry - I Am the Upsetter (29 May 1992)

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One day, someone with more time and commitment than I will ever have will present a fully comprehensive guide to all the categories of human experience that have been covered in popular song.  I suspect that love won, love lost and love making will take the gold, silver and bronze medals, but there’s a good chance that the fourth place holly medal will go to score settling disses to former musical colleagues.  And if so, then I Am the Upsetter will be pushing for attention alongside the likes of How Do You Sleep?, Too Many People and Sorrow Will Come in the End.

Reggae is no stranger to beef in its grooves and this blog has featured a number of reggae tracks in which performers are either calling out their musical or criminal rivals, but when Lee Perry recorded this in 1968, he had one target in mind; his former mentor and boss, Coxsone Dodd.  Perry had worked under Dodd since the late 50s and as well as managing his sound system for him, Perry had recorded a number of records on Dodd’s Studio One label.  However, the pair’s relationship began to deteriorate as the 1960s wore on, and by 1968, Perry was his own man and ready to tear things up when he came to record this on Amalgamated Records for Joe Gibbs.

Despite the gentle rise and fall of the verses and Perry’s winsomely high vocal, the track drips with contempt and sour feeling.  Perry feels ill-used and paints Dodd as self-obsessed, selfish  and a leech:

You take people as fool
Then use them for a tool

There’s a reckoning to be paid, according to Perry, who sets it out in terms that could be construed as threatening violence or more likely, with Dodd representing the old guard against which “the avenger” Perry was comparing himself, obsolescence.  This would be harder to achieve, but far more damaging if it could be done.  Nevertheless, Perry is arming himself for a scrap which he intends to win.

I promise you the left and the right
And there’ll be the uppercut

But it’s the refrain of “Suffer, you’re born to suffer” that pushes this track to another level of nastiness.  The pupil determined not just to better his teacher, but to grind him into the dust.  We’ve
all had moments like that towards bosses, but very few of us can express it this well.  Ultimately, Coxsone Dodd’s legacy was safe but if nothing else, the track gave Perry, who recorded it under his original monicker of Lee ‘King’ Perry both a name for his own record label and more importantly,
his sublime backing group, who would see their work chopped up and repurposed by him in the name of dub to gamechanging effect over the subsequent years.

Video courtesy of trojangilly
Lyrics copyright of Lee Perry