The deejay and singer did not go into a recording booth, but stood over the mixing board and passed the microphone to each other. The song was recorded at Dynamic Sounds in a rather unusual way. Right now if me see her, she laugh with me and she don't know she is part of the lyrics." He says that she never knew that she was the subject of the song, as "I never make anybody know. "A girl live near to me, very pretty, but character dirty," the deejay said. His experience was not as personal as Pliers', but the situation was close at hand. He reinforced it with " gal yu pretty but character, yu run to Tom an Dick an also Harry, an when yu fin' yu mistake yu sey dat yu sorry." So when the chorus was finished, in he came with "a pretty face an bad character, dem deh kin' a living cyaa hol' Chaka." How me pitch it, it never fit it," he said.Īnd Chaka Demus told The Sunday Gleaner that he was ready for the combination, also with lyrics from a song that he had already recorded. Me love the rhythm, but me never feel the vibe. "Is Chaka Demus force me to sing it on the rhythm. In fact, the deejay had urged him to try Murder She Wrote on the Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare Bam Bam remake rhythm.
Me never stop try with it."Īlong the 'trying' path, Pliers hooked up with deejay Chaka Demus and they became an official and lasting duo. He kept trying "because me jus' feel like it have a potential to make it good, because every time me sing it inna dance people mek me sing it four, five time. Pliers told The Sunday Gleaner that he had recorded Murder She Wrote for six or seven producers on different rhythms, but was not satisfied. It was an old song in another sense, in that he had tried it out on record before. She neva really tell me, so me jus' lef' out dat". It was a very personal experience as he says there was "a girl me did deh wid name Maxine an' she fin' sey she pregnant an she mussi have abortion or suppen.
"From me a little yute inna de Red Hills area, me write de song offa a experience," he said. Pliers, who starts the song with " I know this little girl her name is Maxine, her beauty's like a bunch of rose, but if I ever tell you 'bout Maxine, you would say I don't know what I know/but murder she wrote" says that the lyrics were written "long time." It takes a while for the 'murder' to be revealed, as it is not until his third verse that Pliers sings " now every middle a de year dis gal go have abortion, fi de coolie, de white man an de Indian, a jus de odda day me see har six mont' pregnant, a now she deh pon road not a baby inna pram".
Murder she wrote chaka demus and pliers series#
It may not be murder in the strictly legal sense, or a thriller like the cases tapped out by Jessica Fletcher (played by Angela Lansbury) in the television series of the same name, but with that crucial comma (as in Murder, She Wrote) but for many a Jamaican abortion is considered murder.
M urder She Wrote, the Chaka Demus and Pliers 1992 classic deejay and singer combination which broke out of the Jamaican dancehalls at home and abroad to hit number 27 on the United Kingdom charts in 1994, is a bit of a contradiction.Īfter all, the infectious tune on a lively rhythm (a remake of the beat to Toots and the Maytals' 1966 Festival Song winner Bam Bam) is about death.