Collie Buddz, beautiful music and memories of London 1970

Richard Mellor GED
Afscme Local 444, retired.

Man this is beautiful rhythm and for me, great dialect. I haven't yet checked all the lyrics so I'm not critiquing them.

Music, or a song, its rhythm or is lyrics are important. But what else is important to each individual, is what it means to you in terms of your life existence. Did you hear this song or this genre growing up? When did your hear and where?

This song just hits home for me. I was a blues man in my teenage years in the UK. Reggae was different, I wasn't attracted to it so much at first. But I came to really appreciate it and it had such a powerful influence on British music as the blues from Black America did. I remember Millie Small and My Boy Lollipop and Desmond Dekker etc.

I remember being down in Paddington somewhere around Praed street late and night when I was about 20. I was no doubt inebriated and might have even taken a little upper or two. The weed was seen by me and my friends as sort of student drug, the college types.  Alcohol was our drug of choice and predominantly in its beer form. Speed was sort of acceptable because it seemed that it would enable you to drink more beer and that is the goal.

Anyway, I might have been with my best friend JB Hall, if you know where he is I would love to hear from him. JB Hall from Hornsey. So me and Jimmy might have wandered in to this Wend Indian club (probably Jamaican) and it was really good, humming along. I think we were perhaps the only two people with white skin in there barring some women. You have to give women respect for their strength and courage to be prepared to challenge social restraints that society puts upon us. I always liked women, my mum was one.

And last year or maybe 2018, (getting old). I was with my best friend from California here staying in Paddington. It was the women's Women's World Cup and we loved it. The pubs were great, the place was great and the World Cup games were exciting and the Yanks won. We were happy especially as the star of our team was a lesbian woman who supported Kaepernick and slammed the degenerate in the White House.

So this song and the Reggae style has a place in my consciousness because it was a powerful life experience for me. So it's not just a song, it's an important connection to a good part of my history, a positive connection. Obviously there are experiences  even music and individual songs that one remembers, some of them not a genre that pleases your ear and some that might if were it not for the horrible memory they conjure up.

As for this song------it's Magic.