Save Our Planet Earth
Jimmy Cliff
Musidisc through Festival
Reviewed by Norm Dixon
Amongst the latest albums from the French Musidisc label to be released in this country by Festival Records is a little gem by Jamaican reggae great Jimmy Cliff. Recorded in Jamaica and first released in 1989, Save Our Planet Earth contains Cliff's trademark mix of songs dealing with love and passion, and rebellion and liberation. The album is typically light and melodic, perhaps a little too much so for dedicated roots reggae-heads.
The album opens with "Turning Point", a typically Cliff-esque, morale-booster made all the more addictive by Gerald Smith's lovely saxophone lines. "Rebel in Me" is a wonderful song that refuses to counterpose being in love to activity to make a better world.
Love gained, love lost and love complicated are dealt with ably in "First Love", "Everliving Love" and "Trapped". In the latter, Cliff tries his hand at the contemporary "dancehall"-style reggae now becoming very popular on the mainstream charts.
But when Jimmy Cliff sings of liberation and struggle, he comes into his own. Unlike many newer artists who merely nod to the tradition of politically conscious and revolutionary lyrics in reggae, Cliff puts the political and the revolutionary unashamedly up front. You might sometimes quibble with some of the details of his ideas, but he is totally genuine, totally sincere and uncompromisingly committed to a world of freedom and justice.
You only need listen to the dynamic track "Pressure", a lyrically simple yet exciting call to the "keep up the pressure on oppressor": "Keep it up right and left/ Keep it up East and West/ Keep it up North and South/ ... You hit them from within and you hit them from without/ ... You hit them aboard and you hit them from abroad/ You pull out the trade and you pull out the blade/ Now see who is afraid/ ... They can't get over it, they can't get under it/ South Africa must be free, like the statue of liberty."
"No Justice" goes beyond the mere condemnation of racism to target the real cause of oppression: "I work all day to find my daily bread/ Work so hard to get a roof over my head/ But the ones that I work with act as they're my master/ When what I produce I'm more than equal partner/ I can't get no justice under this system/ I can't get no justice in this society/ I work day and night to find my daily meals/ But freedom is suppressed by another one's greed/ ... If they keep wanting to control what we earn/ Run, Oppressor because we're going to burn!"
"Save Our Planet Earth", the title track, underlines Cliff's uncanny ability to express the most pressing issues facing humanity through music. The song should be adopted as the reggae anthem of the youthful green movement. It is a plea to act to save the planet before it is too late and a demand to do it without compromise: "Everybody wants a better future/ So we got to stop destroying the nature/ Every single one of us wants to survive/ So we got to do the right things to stay alive/ ... Everybody got to live on this Earth and be free/ Stop bursting the ozone layer/ Or you won't have a prayer/ Stop disturbing the atmosphere, stop polluting the air/ Stop cutting down the forests/ Stop you're under arrest/ Stop killing all them animals/ Stop, you are a criminal/ We wanna live, we wanna love, we wanna see what life is worth."
A great reworking of the classic "Johnny Too Bad", the exceedingly danceable "Dance Reggae Dance" and the cola-ad-jingle-like "The Grass is Greener" round out another terrific Jimmy Cliff album.