Category: Why Are People Grudgeful?

Written by:

Joe Gibbs, Lee Perry

Initial release:

Why Are People Grudgeful?, Cog Sinister/Permanent 7SPERM9 7”; 12SPERM9 12”; CDSPERM9 CD [US version: Matador Records OLE-054 2 CD; (OLE-053 7 7″; 20 April 1993]

Date:

5 April 1993

Subsequent reissues:

The Infotainment Scan, Cog Sinister/Permanent PERMLP12 LP; PERMMC12 Cassette; PERMCD12 CD; 26 April 1993 (different edit to single version)
Independent Top 20, Beechwood Music TT017CD, 1993 (compilation CD)
The Infotainment Scan, Artful Records ARTFULCD 22; 5 July 1999 (reissue of original album)
A World Bewitched – Artful ARTFULCD35, 6 February 2001 (single version)
High Tension Line, Recall/Snapper Music SMDCD443; 22 September 2002 (single version)
50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong – 39 Golden Greats, Sanctuary SMEDD017; 31 May 2004 (single version)
The Infotainment Scan, Castle/Sanctuary CMQDD1227 CD; 23 January 2006 (contains original album and single versions of track)
Permanent Years (Paranoia Man In Cheap Sh*t Room), Fulfil Records ARTFULCD53; 22 May 2006 (single version)
The Fall: A Sides 1978 – 2016. Cherry Red CRCDBox 42; 24 November 2017 (single version)
The Fall: Singles 1978 – 2016, Cherry Red CRCDBox 30; 24 November 2017 (single version)
The Fall – 58 Golden Greats, Cherry Red CRCDBox74; 7 December 2018

Official live releases:

Live Various Years – Cog Sinister/Voiceprint COGVP111CD, September 1998 (Saturday, 2 October 1993 – Riem Airport Terminal 1, Munich, Germany)
Live Various Years (Reissued by Cog Sinister/Voiceprint with Live in Cambridge 1988) VP241004 CD: 22 September 2003
The Fall – Set of Ten, Cog Sinister CD; 14 December 2018 (recorded at Batschkapp. Frankfurt; 11 October 1993)

Group on initial recording:

Mark E Smith – vocals; Craig Scanlon – guitar; Steve Hanley – bass; Dave Bush – keyboards; Simon Wolstencroft – drums, keyboards; Karl Burns – drums

Commentary:

This is a cover version, or to be more accurate, a cover version of two different but related songs. The story behind the original versions is as follows:

“Born in the rural Jamaican village of St. Mary’s in 1936, Perry began his surrealistic musical odyssey in the late ’50s, working with ska man Prince Buster selling records for Clement “Coxsone” Dodd’s Downbeat Sound System. Called “Little” Perry because of his diminutive stature (Perry stands 4’11”), he was soon producing and recording for Dodd at the center of the Jamaican music industry, Studio One. After a falling out with Dodd (throughout his career, Perry has a tendency to burn his bridges after he stopped working with someone), Perry went to work at Wirl Records with Joe Gibbs. Perry and Gibbs never really saw eye to eye on anything, and in 1968, Perry left to form his own label, called Upsetter. Not surprisingly, Perry’s first release on Upsetter was a single entitled “People Funny Boy,” which was a direct attack upon Gibbs. What is important about the record is that, along with selling extremely well in Jamaica, it was the first Jamaican pop record to use the loping, lazy, bass-driven beat that would soon become identified as the reggae “riddim” and signal the shift from the hyperkinetically upbeat ska to the pulsing, throbbing languor of “roots” reggae.”

Joe Gibbs released a reply in a song using the same rhythm called “People Grudgeful”. MES amalgamated the two songs to help create The Fall’s cover version.

This was The Fall’s first release on the Permanent record label. Paul Mathur, in a review in Melody Maker on 3 April 1993, considered the single to be “the most engaging things [Smith’s] done for a couple of years”. But, as Simon Ford points out in “The Fall”, “even a live appearance on The Beat and a low.budget promotional video screened on MTV couldn’t help propel Why Are You Grudgeful? higher than no. 43 in the charts.”

The track reached no. 11 in John Peel’s Festive Fifty in 1993.

Lyrics to “People Funny Boy”:

“why, why people funny bwoy
now that you reach the top
an’ you turn big shot
all I have done for you
you not remember that
when you were down an’ out
I used to help you out
but now that you win jackpot
you don’t remember that
now that you turn big shot
bwoy you ‘ave big chat