The Further You Look

It was the early 1970s

At the Record Corner Bedford Hill Balham

A shop that I often visited on a Saturday afternoon.

I didn’t know much about reggae then

But I liked a lot of what I had heard.

One day

While looking through the record racks

I came across an album

A Love I Can Feel by John Holt

On the Bamboo label.

Something made me buy it

I took it home and played it

I liked it

It had soul.

I didn’t follow John Holt’s career

But from time to time I listened to him.

A Thousand Volts Of Holt

I liked his version of Mr Bojangels,

“Is it rain from the sky?

Or tears from my eyes

Running down my cheeks over you”?

His song Ali Baba

Became who shot the barber?

As the DJs toasted

And Natty Dread started to flourish

There were rumours going round town about the barber,

But it wasn’t Natty Dread who shot him.

Lovers rock singers

Stoned toasters

We need them both

To help make the world go round.

Frank Bangay

October 20014