Junior Murvin modelled his impossibly high falsetto on Curtis Mayfield though it always reminded me as much of Sam Cooke: a deceptively sweet sound for such a politically charged lyric: the police and thieves “scaring the nation with their guns and ammunition.”
Apparently Murvin turned up at Lee Perry’s Black Ark Studio with his self-penned song and the eccentric genius recorded and released it within a matter of weeks. It was an instant hit in Jamaica and eventually followed suit here, after Island Records signed him up.
There’s a great 12-inch with four different versions of the song, which I still have in my collection. And of course there’s that cover version by The Clash, which brings a different anger and energy to the song.
Police And Thieves chimed with the political upheavals in Jamaica as much as it did with the racial tensions in England, where the National Front was gaining traction and the inner cities were on the brink of outright rebellion against an authoritarian police force using stop-and-search to discriminate against black youths (and, for that matter, white punks).