Lee Perry’s song Dreadlocks In Moonlight was originally intended for Bob Marley & The Wailers – until a chance meeting at his studio in Jamaica.

This song, and the narrative behind it, is a serendipitous story of life and death involving Lee Perry, Bob Marley and Chris Blackwell.

Lee Perry wrote the song for Bob Marley to sing and was recording a demo when Chris Blackwell turned up unexpectedly at his Black Ark studio on 3 December 1976.

The Island Records boss was in town for Smile Jamaica, a free concert Bob Marley & The Wailers were due to stage two days later.

And when he heard the demo, with Perry’s own vocals, he was so impressed that he offered to release it instead of passing it on to Marley.

A delighted Scratch invited Blackwell to stay for the final mix, which meant the Englishman cancelled his plan to meet the Wailers at their Hope Road headquarters.

Fatefully, that was the very day gunmen staged an assassination attempt there. Marley, his wife Rita and manager Don Taylor, were all injured – so it could be argued that this song saved Blackwell’s life.

It didn’t do much for his bank account – and one wonders how well it would have fared had Marley sung it in the end – but despite being a flop, it’s clearly one of Scratch’s masterpieces.

Dreadlocks In Moonlights sets new words, written by Perry, to a variation on the riddim he co-wrote with Junior Murvin for his classic Police And Thieves.

In Perry’s new version, the “Big Neck Police” (a phrase that would retitle the stellar recut done for Perry’s later album Roast Fish, Collie Weed & Corn Bread) are this time bringing pressure down on the Rasta faithful.

But no matter how hard the pressure drop, no matter how far the police go to intimidate, the righteous Rastaman will not stray from his faith: “For they that put their trust in Jah shall be like Mount Zion high that shall never removeth but abideth forever.”

It reflected a turbulent time for Rastas in Jamaica and, facing ever more violence from those who saw them as a threat to the social order, as evidenced by the gun attack on Marley.

But even the attempted assassination of Rastafarianism’s greatest ambassador would not remove them from their faith. And Perry’s song, which featured in the 1982 film Countryman, serves as a permanent reminder.