This is one of the classic reggae songs. And like so many classic reggae songs, it’s been covered many times in many different versions. And, for that matter, several different titles.

This is the first one I heard. It’s sung by Dennis Brown who I saw when he came to play Reggae Sunsplash in Crystal Palace in 1984. Bob Marley once declared Dennis to have the best voice in the world.

The song was written by John Holt when he was a member of The Paragons, the vocal group he joined back in 1964 with Garth ‘Tyrone’ Evans, Bob Andy and Junior Menz.

They were the first group to record the song, at Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle studio, but it was only released initially as the B-side of a single called Left With A Broken Heart.

Holt is not the lead singer on their version, his role limited to singing – or rather humming – the backing vocals behind lead singer Tyrone Evans.

Holt later made his own recording before Dennis Brown made his in 1979, followed soon afterwards by The Slits.

There’s a lively uptempo take by Horace Andy, also with The Paragons, produced by Bunny Lee, under the new title Quiet Place, which inspired an answer-back version by I-Roy called Noisy Place.

Other toasters to tackle the song include U-Roy – twice, first in 1982 as Peace And Love In The Ghetto, and later in a duet with Santigold, and Dr Alimentado’s political Poison Flour, documenting a topical scandal in which the Jamaican government sold poisoned flour to the poorest people.

More recently came Horace Andy’s electronic version with Massive Attack in 1998. But this, for me, is the definitive version. Alternatively, the unimpeachable Dr Algoriddim has compiled them all together for us right here: