The Harder They Come

Jimmy Cliff brought reggae music to worldwide audiences when he starred in the 1972 film called The Harder They Come. Backed by an outstanding soundtrack that featured many first-wave ska and reggae classics, this was a showcase for the real Jamaica. Join co-hosts Jon and Mark as they try to recap Ivan's troubles adjusting to city life while chasing a dream, which also includes driving a stolen convertible car around a golf course.

Preacher on the warpath tonight!

Transcript

Jon (00:00)
Tonight on the Rock and Roll Theatre Podcast, I'm gonna get my share what's mine. The harder they come, Jimmy Cliff.

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Rock and Roll Theatre. My name is Jon. I'm joined by my co-host and my brother Mark. Each week here in the Rock and Roll Theatre we take a look at pop culture, music, movies, all sorts of fun stuff. And today we're looking at The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff.

Mark (00:31)
The Harder They Come was released on June fifth, nineteen seventy two. It runs one hour forty minutes, rated R. It is considered a drama, crime, and music movie. That's kind of an odd combination, but it makes sense after you see it. The budget was around one hundred fifty thousand dollars, and there are no numbers on how much it made at the box office at that time.

This film was directed by Perry Henzell and it stars reggae artist Jimmy Cliff.

So the premise here is that we're following a man from the Kingston countryside named Ivanhoe Martin, and he's trying to make it big in Kingston. He's a musician and he dreams of becoming a superstar with hit singles on the radio, but finds himself caught up in some criminal activity when things don't go as planned. The story is supposed to be loosely inspired by a real outlaw named Ivanhoe Rhygin Martin.

But he was neither a musician nor a drug dealer unlike the character in this film, so this connection's a bit lost on me.

Jon (01:38)
Jimmy Cliff got his start in the music business in Jamaica at the ripe young age of 17. he had a somewhat hit song called Hurricane Haidee at that age. he was on featured on some different, Friday programs at the time around that era. He was on one called This Is Ska, which sounds like it would have been really interesting. Prince Buster was on that show. We're gonna talk about him later. Toots and the Maytals are on there, we'll talk about them later. so once his career got going, he moved to the UK and signed a record deal with Ireland. They were trying to

Promoted more as a rock artist, which doesn't really work for Jimmy Cliff. But in 1967, The Road to Travel came out, and that started happening things for Jimmy all over the world. He moved back to Jamaica when he felt it was a little bit of a crossroads of his career. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. So he signed on for this movie, which actually started production in 1970, but found a hard time getting off the ground and finding funding.

Mark (02:27)
Director Perry Henzell deliberately prioritized authentic Jamaican language, culture, and lived experience rather than tailoring it for international audiences. It was the first feature film made in Jamaica by Jamaicans. It used local actors and authentic settings to help showcase a real Jamaica, not a tourist destination version of Jamaica. Jimmy Cliff drew on his own experiences in Kingston's poor neighborhoods to shape his performance. The soundtrack.

Featured many big name first wave ska and reggae artists, like Jimmy Cliff, providing original performances. Jimmy Cliff even wrote a song called The Harder They Come, which is the song used in the film when Ivan goes to record his single.

The soundtrack is widely credited with popularizing reggae internationally and appears on many best of lists, and we'll be diving into it in a little while.

Jon (03:19)
We're gonna get to all things the Harder They Come. But first, a spoiler warning ahead.

If you haven't seen The Harder They Come in a long time or have never seen it, hit pause. There are spoilers ahead and come right back and we'll be right here to react to everything.

Also, a quick note here, I found this movie, it's a little harder to find. I found on the Shout Studios YouTube channel, which we also use to watch Rock N' Roll High School with the Ramones for our very first episode of the podcast way back when. So Shout's a good resource when trying to seek out these types of movies. We're not affiliated with them in any sort of way, but hey, they have a good thing going over there. And while you're at it, check out our YouTube channel, our TikTok, all the different things we got going on. Little things like that really help our podcast. But for now, the harder they come.

Mark (04:02)
Film opens with a bus driving down a country road in Jamaica. The bus ends up having a honking standoff with a delivery truck on a bridge. As a viewer, I'm thinking, why? Why is this relevant to anything? It's a very odd opening. The song that's playing in the background is Jimmy Cliff. You can get it if you really want. So that's kind of cool.

We also see a montage of a Jamaican landscape. Things look nice, but then we also see some scenes of urban life in Kingston. So I guess they're setting up this, going from the country vibe to going to the city vibe. We're in the city now, and we haven't been introduced to the main character, Ivan, just yet. But we see him step off the bus. I guess he's supposed to be sort of like the country boy entering the city, and he immediately

Bumps into a guy with a pedal wagon. And he wonders, you know, does the pedal, can the pedal guy take him to, I think he says Milk Road or Milk Lane, something like that? And the guy says, Sure, yeah, I can take you if you pay me 50 cents and help me push. So he decides, all right, this is at least some form of help. So he loads his luggage in there and they begin going up the street in the pedal wagon.

So then the pedal wagon guy kind of they stop at the intersection, it's a red light. Country boy, you don't know anything about a red light, you know, you need to stop. So they stop. the pedal wagon guy calls over to another pedal wagon guy on the on the opposite side of the road and starts arguing with them about he owes them money, this type of thing. he sends Ivan over to retrieve the money. So as soon as Ivan crosses the street, the guy with the pedal wagon takes off. this is establishing the harsh realities.

of city life as Ivan has now lost his belongings. While I'm watching this, I'm seeing some very odd filming angles. There is lots of weird overdubbing and voiceovers going on. I'm I know I'm looking at a movie that's not very high budget. ⁓ production is definitely not a one.

Jon (06:05)
It is a very raw style of footage that they're shooting. it looks like they were just going for it straight on the streets of Jamaica to make this happen. There's no sets, it's nothing like that. ⁓ also, I will say though, there are overdubs and things here, but the audio kind of sorts itself out once we enter the main story of the movie. So Ivan moves along after he's had his unfortunate encounter there, and he sees a bunch of guys playing dominoes, they're near his mom's place. Ivan asks to see his mom, see if she's around, and they point him in the right direction. He lets her know that ⁓ her mother, his grandmother, has passed. They had to sell

Place they had a funeral, but there's only a little bit of money left over for everyone. And basically, mom reacts to this rather sadly. And Ivan tells his mom that he's in town because he wants to make a record. I can sing, you know, Mama, he tells her. But mom's not into this idea at all. She tells him the city is a really hard place, which I mean he's already discovered in the first day he was there. And she gives him a business card for someone named Preacher. And Ivan seems skeptical of going to see this Preacher fellow.

So after he visits his mom, Ivan decides to go to the movies with the gang of guys he met from the alley. Jose and the boys, shall we say. They they go to see Django, which is an old Western film. They're cheering loudly at the screen, and they all start yelling, The hero can't die until the last reel. Hmm. Bit of foreshadowing there, I think.

Mark (07:17)
We move along into another montage of going to the fair and hanging out at night in the city. So Ivan is sort of finding his groove in this new place. The song that we're hearing in the background is by Toots and the Maytals, Pressure Drop, probably the most famous First Wave Ska song. And this was covered by the Clash on the English Civil War single. I think this is good raw footage of everyday Jamaican life.

It is helping establish a vibe to the movie. So at this point as a viewer, I'm getting into it maybe a little bit more than I was in the first few opening scenes. It's the next day now, and Ivan is looking at instruments in the Hilton music store window. He's eyeing a guitar. He's he's looking at things like, you know, this is something that's really catching his eye. He sees a gang of guys waiting outside the parking lot around back. And this is the first time that we're introduced to.

Mr. Hilton, the owner of the music store. So Mr. Hilton's getting ready to leave the parking lot, and these guys run up to his car and they say, Mr. Hilton, Mr. Hilton, we have to sing for you. And he says, All right, show me what you got. They start singing their song, just kind of a cappella. They got one guitar and everybody's singing. Mr. Hilton cuts in maybe 20 seconds into the song and says, he's not interested. It's too slow.

Jon (08:35)
I agree with him. It is too slow. It is too cheesy. Kind of like a hymn they're singing to him. I wouldn't assign them either. But this establishes that Mr. Hilton is basically the big wig, the the big cheese of the Jamaican music scene.

Mark (08:48)
Then we see this very odd montage of Ivan wandering around and looking for random jobs. And I mean random jobs. One scene, he just walks into some lady's backyard, and she looks over the hedge and is like, What are you doing here? What are you doing? How'd you get in here? And he's just like, the gate was open. And then she's like, Well then busy yourself and leave here and close the gate when you're on your way out. It's it's really weird.

Jon (09:16)
I thought this was super weird too. It's not like this woman becomes a character in the movie, which I I thought I hadn't seen in a long time. I thought, maybe this pays off somewhere down the road. Nope. He's just wandering to people's backyards, asking random people for ten cents, and obviously they're not happy about it.

Mark (09:32)
The song that we hear during this montage is Jimmy Cliff, Many Rivers to Cross. So then we move on to our next setting, which is the church compound. So I guess Ivan is looking at this business card for preacher and he thinks, okay, this is somewhere that maybe I need to go. We see him walk up to the church and there's a lot of music. Everyone is singing and celebrating inside, but he's just watching through the window for now.

Jon (09:57)
And the choir are all rocking graduation caps.

Never quite explained. Maybe it's a thing in Jamaican culture I'm unaware of. I don't know. But I thought that was interesting. there's some good distortion on the guitar while they're playing Walk with Jesus, then suddenly it's the next day and Ivan is now working for Preacher. There's no pretext, there's no how this happened. He's just now the repair man. they're working on bicycles, and he Ivan has a little boom box with him, and they're playing the slickers, Jonny Too Bad. He's wearing an oversized yellow hat and sunglasses, so he's definitely looking a little more cool. So it's

Coworker actually refers to him as Jonny Too Bad, just like the character in the song. we also meet Elsa, who is staying with Preacher. She's around the same age as Ivan at her compound. He starts to like her. So he decides he's gonna, you know, step up his game. He starts singing the church choir, but this this scene's a little bit confusing. It's kind of oddly paced, and we kind of sort of learn that preacher's involved with also making records for the church.

Mark (10:49)
We move along to a montage of Ivan fixing a bike that was discarded in the c scrapyard. So I guess he's handy with bikes and knows his way around one. The song that's playing during this is by Desmond Decker, Shantytown ⁓ 007, another very famous early ska song from Jamaica. the preacher, though, he's not too happy with Ivan. He's he's usually pretty pissed off whenever he's crossing paths with Ivan. So he's slacking off.

And Preacher's not having it. No boogie woogie in the yard is one of the lines here. So when Elsa and the other girls hear Preacher going off on Ivan, they say, Preacher is on the war path.

Jon (11:29)
The girls have definitely figured out the preacher's kind of a creep and maybe has the the the g young girls around for somewhat nefarious reasons.

We then cut to a scene with everybody rocking out at the church. The priest is screaming, the band's rocking out, and they kind of have this lo-fi garage rock sound, which I liked it. It was pretty intense. so after all the chaos of that scene, we cut right into a nice peaceful scene again. Ivan goes for a long bike ride with Elsa. And when he gets back, preacher ain't having it. He is pissed off again when Ivan returns, and he starts trashing his car, ripping up his Playboy magazines, and then he yells at him, one of my favorite lines of the movie: You've been skylarking.

Mark (12:06)
The next day, Preacher decides to task Ivan with taking the church recordings down to the recording studio downtown. So I guess he trusts Ivan enough. Ivan does enough to convince him that he's the man for the job. Ivan shows up to the studio. When he does, he knocks on the door, he goes in. Toots and the Matels are recording a live version of Sweet and Dandy. It's sounding great. The band is playing for real. Everyone is digging it. Ivan's having a moment. He's getting inspired.

Jon (12:36)
It's our first real live music scene of the movie, and it's a really good scene. It's great footage. the room is in the studio, it's like one big room, just like it reminded me of one as I took a tour of Motown back in the day. Same type of vibe to it. However, I did notice that the sound tech is smoking a pipe over top of the soundboard, which is definitely something that wouldn't fly in 2026 on top of a digital console.

Mark (12:55)
So Ivan's getting inspired and he knows he's about to talk to Mr. Hilton and the engineer when he hands over the church recordings. So he builds up his courage and he says, Hey, I'm a singer too. I've got a song I'd really love to record. Surprisingly, it's it goes kind of well. And the engineer tells Ivan he can record his song. And the exact phrase he gives him is tomorrow or next week.

Jon (13:19)
It's kind of vague and they actually never even asked you know, to hear the song, any part of it. But hey, good good luck, Ivan.

Mark (13:26)
So Ivan is convinced that this is his chance for a hit song. He's got to practice, right? He goes back to the church compound and he convinces Elsa to sneak him the key to the church so he can go in late at night and practice. We see a scene of him playing The Harder They Come, accompanied by one other fellow on guitar, and it's sounding great. It's the first time in the movie we hear the song, it ends there. Preacher busts in and once again is dead.

Pissed off and I mean royally pissed off.

Jon (13:58)
Well, Peter should have listened to the lyrics. I think a lot of them could apply to him and how, you know, he's living his life. So the next day, Ivan's gonna get kicked out the compound for this. So he wants to take his bike with him. And Longa, who's the guy who he was helping at the the bike repair shop, I guess you would say, decided this is my bike now and I'm not giving it back. So this erupts into a huge fight, like a very violent sequence over a bike, which is a little, you know, I don't know, maybe overreaction. there's a broken bottle, there's a knife, Logan screams, You stab me.

And the the action sequence is not very well filmed, even for this time period. I mean, they could have done this a bit better. The blood looks very fake. And it's a it's a lot of violence over a bike, basically. so Ivan is arrested, sort of. He gets sentenced to a lashing, but is released since he's involved with the church. And he decides to move in with Elsa. This all moves very quickly.

Mark (14:51)
Things seem to be better though now because now we're going back to the studio and it's time to record. Ivan is rocking out. We hear The Harder They Come in full with a very emotional performance by Jimmy Cliff. I would say without a doubt, this is the best scene in the movie. It sounds awesome. The band nails it. There's authentic playing. There's real singing, real emotion. I would really encourage anyone who's a fan of

ska reggae punk any of those genres to just even just watch this one scene, find it. It's really, really well done.

Jon (15:24)
Even if you don't want to see the whole movie, I would agree. Watch this one scene.

Mark (15:28)
So after the recording, mister Hilton offers Ivan twenty dollars for the song.

Maybe that's about right for the music biz at the time. However, Ivan really believes in himself. He doesn't sign the deal. No way. So then we see Ivan going around Kingston. He's trying to push the song by himself to local DJs and shops, but they all tell him that they only deal with Hilton directly.

Jon (15:57)
So he Ivan decides to sign the deal with Hilton. I mean, what else is he gonna do? He controls all the radio stations, he controls all the dance halls, he controls it all. So if he doesn't make a deal with them, he's kind of stuck with the song with nowhere to go. So Hilton laughs at him and kind of mocks him, but does pay up for him. And then we go into this weird interlude montage, I guess, about crime in the city. That you know, we hadn't really heard anything about this yet in the film. So we're kind of taking a bit of a left turn here. We see Jose driving up to his scooter, he's talking to the cops. We kind of get the vibe, maybe he's a big

Time drug dealer, or something's really going on here. But in the meantime, Ivan decides to celebrate his song being released. he's getting all spiffied up to go to the bar. Elsa doesn't want to go though, she's tired, she's been looking for work all day long. But Ivan seemed to think he's already made it. So all the DJs are playing it, and we see a good cameo here from Prince Buster. And he puts the the higher they come onto the sound system.

Prince Buster was a sound system DJ. He also performed with the Scatellites. He was someone who avoided the spotlight, however. And one of his most famous songs is called One Step Beyond, which most people probably know the version by Madness Also, fun note, One Step Beyond was the name of my local alternative club when I was a teenager.

This is great food of dance hall culture. It all seems very real and authentic. No doubt they just rolled up to some random place on one night with the cameras and said, hey, we're gonna shoot this.

Mark (17:15)
So Ivan's enjoying his night, but then Jose shows up. Ivan's like, all right, I know Jose, leaves with him. Jose ends up offering Ivan a job as a drug runner. It's totally not clear, but okay, let's roll with it. The movie definitely goes into some different territory here. It now takes on a vibe of some sort of crime drama, but it's it's not well executed here.

We see some clips of Ivan doing some small time running and collecting with his friend Pedro. He waves to the cops. Everything is fine, so I guess they're in on it, is what we're supposed to be taking out of this. One night at a late night party, Ivan is offered a pair, interesting, a pair of handguns, not one, for twenty dollars. And he decides to buy them. You know, he's thinking, I need some protection. All right.

We see f some footage of an airplane moving along with maybe some weed in it. I guess they're trying to imply drug trafficking is is a big deal, What happened to being a musician? That seems like th this is is this is not Ivan's focus anymore. Is the movie even gonna go back to music? I'm not sure.

Jon (18:30)
We seem to have switched here from a music movie to a crime movie. So now Ivan goes to play pool with Jose and talk business, and Ivan isn't super happy what they're getting paid.

Ivan's heard about how much money some of the drug dealers are making through the newspapers, and he wants a much bigger cut than the money he's making. as they're talking about him, they're playing pool in a bar, and it's a really cool looking bar. It's definitely an authentic Jamaican bar. I think there's like all hand-painted murals in the background and stuff. Looks really cool. So then we have a montage of the Jamaican army burning up fields. So obviously mean they're burning up the marijuana, they're burning up the ganja. So they're turning the heat up on all the drug runners. So Jose doesn't like how Ivan's given him trouble. He said, We've already have enough going on here. We don't need

you rocking the boat here. So Jose sets up a sting where the policeman chases Ivan on his new scooter, but then so once he crashes, Ivan shoots the policeman. So he the wave didn't work when he went past. And then after that, Ivan ends up with Jose's girl somehow. Not 100% sure how any of that happened, but here we are.

Mark (19:27)
Yep, things are confusing, hard to follow. This crime element isn't working out too well for me as a audience member. Anyway, the police show up at night to Ivan's place for a shootout. I mean, why not? Ivan shoots all the cops. ⁓ he's a master shooter. He's only had a few handguns for a few days, and he can take out three cops no problem. So Ivan wants revenge on Jose. He's going out, he's trying to find him. He goes to Jose's place, but he only finds his girlfriend instead.

Shoots her. The next day, this is really odd this scene. The next day he chases Jose around in broad daylight and is shooting at him at pub in public? Has he lost it?

Jon (20:09)
I mean, how much is it gonna take for the police to take notice of what's going on in the Ivan Jose crime syndicate here? it's totally crazy. So, but in the meantime, though, however, Hilton, Mr. Hilton, is continuing to be a total sleaze ball. He's trying to push all the DJs to play, hard they come. Now Ivan's famous for being a wanted man in a total sleazy music biz move. And he's also interested, hey, like Ivan, I I want to get him to record again before he gets caught by the police, which I mean is a common thing, I guess, you know, certain musicians, maybe rappers have done in later

days where they've recorded a bunch of material when they knew hmm possibly prison was coming up in the future. And we hear pressure drop in the background during this. And this is definitely the pressure is going to drop on you, Ivan, is getting close. And he starts also as time to put graffiti everywhere saying, I was here. And then after all of this chaos decides, hey, let's go to an all-inclusive.

Mark (20:58)
So Ivan shows up at the front of the hotel and there's a valet. Ivan decides to take the valet hostage in one of the Cadillacs that it pulled up that the valet was about to go park. Why not? So they drive over to a golf course, and I don't know if Ivan knows how to drive. I guess he doesn't know how to drive, is what we're supposed to assume. He puts the valet at gunpoint and orders him out of the car, so he leaves and just runs away.

And then we see a montage of Ivan driving around the golf course in the Cadillac. Nothing is making sense. And for somebody who's on the run, like he's making himself pretty easy to catch. He's he's out anywhere in broad daylight doing crazy things. So I guess the police presence is not too intense. We then see this famous photo session scene where Ivan poses with two guns. And the idea here is he sends these photos to the press to sort of

hype himself as look at me, I'm this gangster, superstar, wanted man, and I'm also ⁓ yeah I also have a hit song on the radio. During this montage we hear Shantytown seven once again.

Jon (22:07)
These are really cool pitchers. ⁓ they're iconic, they're great pitchers. And from what we can tell, the locals are behind him. one of them says, I hope he keeps running. I like the excitement. And so the newspapers decide, hey, we're gonna print the pictures. However, they're starting to become problems here with the local police and the local criminals, shall we say. ⁓ if there's no hit parade, there's no music, and there's no ganja, there's gonna be problems in the neighborhoods. So the police assault team is after Ivan, but like, is he really this hard to find? He's driving around a golf course badly and slowly.

You could walk up to him probably and arrest him. Anyway, that doesn't seem to happen here.

So Ivan has a shootout now in the forest with the police team. He gets shot in the shoulder, he goes down, hops back up, continues to run away. it looks like he has no damage, but later on we did see he kind of got hurt. So now we're seeing more formal efforts from the police and Detective Jones to try to find ways to pressure the drug runners. yet again, it's kind of confusing. This part's very long in the film, and so in the end, Ivan decides to meet up with Pedro, who convinces him that fleeing to Cuba is gonna be the best way out. So then we see them having fun at the beach for a bit and chilling out. we hear sitting

in limbo, which is a very good song we'll talk about in a bit. Elsa, however, she has to go to Preacher for help and he rats them all out. So sadly Elsa says every time I play, I lose.

Mark (23:23)
Ivan decides it's time to swim out into the open water to board a ship that is bound for Cuba. The crew on the ship, they throw Ivan a rope, but he misses it, and it's very obvious that he can't swim well. The next scene we see Ivan waking up on an island, I guess. Or is it the beach where he started, like he drifted back? We're not sure. A boat pulls up and the Jamaican police assault team get off the boat.

And they are serious business is about to go down here. They have some very heavy ammunition and they're looking for Ivan. Ivan decides, hey, why not have another shootout with them? He had one before, right? He he got maybe a little hurt, but not too hurt. Let's let's go at it again. We see Ivan wearing the same shirt from the recording session a few, I guess it's weeks ago now, from from the timeline we're following here. While he's having this shootout with the assault team.

We see pieces of a montage of an earlier scene where he's at the movies and him and his buddies are all jeering at the screen, the hero can't die until the last reel. So I guess we're seeing this play back into this final sequence here. Ivan does well at first. I mean, he's a master gunman by this point. He's dodging behind trees and bushes, but then he eventually gets shot to death. So when I was watching this, I thought.

Did the clash reference this scene with the title Ivan Meets G.I. Joe? That's not my favorite song. It's like a disco song. I understand it's supposed to be symbolic of the relations between the USSR, which is Ivan, and G.I. Joe, which is United States. I get it. But come on. Ivan is meeting G.I. Joe here, literally on the beach. So I think it makes sense once you see it. So if you're out there, maybe Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Don Letts, hey, hit us up on the socials, leave us a comment.

Let us know the real answer. Maybe I'm way off with this revelation that I've just had. So then the credits run with a woman dancing in a nightclub to the harder they fall.

Looking at the soundtrack for The Harder They Come, original soundtrack recording. It was released in 1972 on Island Records. Its style is reggae, rock steady, and soundtrack. It's fairly short. There's 12 songs total, but two of them repeat, so it's really 10 individual songs. So let's go through each one. because this was a pretty significant soundtrack at the time, there's been lots of covers in various genres of music since then.

So we'll call out some of the notable covers for each one of these.

Jon (26:02)
And the actual soundtrack cover is awesome too, I would like to mention here. it's a very psychedelic 70s Peter Maximilat artist type of drawing. it's really cool and really sets the tone for what we're about to hear.

Mark (26:14)
First up, Jimmy Cliff, you can get it if you really want.

Jon (26:19)
one of his most biggest hits. it's a great song. has a really cool it you know memorable horn intro. There's lots of horns in this song. It's upbeat, it's a great version of what early reggae ska music is. ⁓ but I also hear other elements too of like, you 50s, 60s rock and roll in here as well, too, seeps its way in, which I'm sure they heard on the radio in Jamaica. So it's got lots of elements going on here. It's a great song. an uplifting song, really good track to start it off.

Mark (26:43)
I think it's pretty strong. It is upbeat. We hear it several times in the movie, like in the opening scene, so I think it's appropriate to be the first one on the album. Notable cover in nineteen ninety nine by Stiff Little Fingers.

Up next we have Scotty draw your brakes.

Jon (27:00)
This is more of like a reggae like dub sort of style intro. Also very classic reggae sounding. I really like the guitar solo one. The guitar solo was done really well.

Mark (27:10)
I think it's a good one. It was covered by French punk band Burning Heads in nineteen ninety eight.

Next up the Melodians, rivers of Babylon.

Jon (27:21)
This is the longest track on the album. It's a very simple melody. ⁓ has a lot of ablib vocals to it and parts, very Rasta influenced. And the song was actually banned in Jamaica for a bit because of the Rasta references and lyrics and what have you. this one was covered by Willie Nelson. It was covered by Sublime, as well as Boney did a disco version of it.

Mark (27:42)
Next up, Jimmy Cliff, Many Rivers to Cross.

Jon (27:46)
this is a very gospel influenced type song. it's very nice. It's more of a traditional ballad type of thing. he mentions the Cliffs of Dober, which when he was in England and things weren't going so well for him. this is kind of a song he wrote around that time.

Mark (28:01)
Yeah, I found this one to be a little bit slower, like you said, a little bit more kind of gospel. Not not my most favorite, but not a horrible track.

Jon (28:08)
Wasn't made for the movie, so maybe it but still you're gonna include it. It's very big song for Jimmy.

Mark (28:14)
Next is the track we heard in the studio by Toots and the Maytals, Sweet and Dandy.

Jon (28:20)
this is a great ska reggae vibe to it, rock steady. But also sort of as a fifties vibe to it as well. I really like the chorus. The chorus was really good. I have a feeling that the band no doubt have listened to this song mm a couple of times.

Mark (28:33)
I think so. Now we reach the title track by Jimmy Cliff, The Harder They Come.

Jon (28:39)
This is the best song on the album. Obviously, he wrote the song after they discovered the title of the movie. The lyrics are perfect. It fits in great with everything that's going on. Basically tells a story. And also, the in the a cappella version he does in the movie, I know it's almost like Bruno Mars sounding ish. Like Bruno Mars could probably have pulled that off too as well. Same similar range of voice.

Mark (29:00)
I think this is Jimmy Cliff's best song. I think it's the best song on this album. And I think it's probably the best or in the top three first wave Jamaican Ska songs.

Jon (29:02)
Meet

Me too.

Absolutely.

Mark (29:14)
This song has been covered a lot, some notable ones here. Poison Idea in nineteen ninety two, Madness in nineteen ninety two, Rancid in nineteen ninety seven most famously. Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, two thousand three, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmies also in two thousand three.

Jon (29:21)
yeah.

Also then you can add Joel Cocker to that list as well too, Mark, who covered it in nineteen eighty.

Mark (29:36)
Next up the slickers, Jonny too bad.

Jon (29:39)
And this is mentioned in the movie. It's reference as they refer to once Ivan gets his new look with his better clothes, whatever that he w you're acting like Jonny too bad and that's the song that's playing. it's another classic great reggae dub feeling to the song. And it fits perfectly with the movie, fits perfect on the soundtrack.

Mark (29:55)
It's a great inclusion. It's got the right vibe, the right feel. Notable covers here. R X bandits in ninety nine, the selector in ninety nine, adhesive in two thousand one, anti nowhere league in twenty seventeen.

Next up is Desmond Decker with Shantytown, also referred to as O seven. Sometimes it's even referred to as O seven in brackets Shantytown.

Jon (30:18)
The radio was playing, Desmond Decker was singing. This is a 1967 hit. He mentions Rude Boys in here, and Rude Boys is they were watching films like Double O Seven, James Bond, Ocean's Eleven, so they referred to themselves as that. of course, it's gone on to influence a million songs like The Clash, Rihanna have used the term Rude Boy, no doubt, of course, as well, too. so but when you want to know where it all started from, Desmond Decker.

Mark (30:49)
Next up we're with Toots and the Metals again for pressure drop.

Jon (30:53)
This is my second favorite song on the album. probably I'll admit because I first heard this song from The Clash. I hadn't seen this movie just yet. I'll get into that in a little bit. the Clash covered it, the specials covered it, has a real gospel feeling to it. It's pretty it's a really simple song, but it just works on so many levels. And even they use it when Ivan's running from the cops, pressure is gonna drop on you, which is exactly what's about to happen. So great song, great lyrics.

Mark (31:17)
It's a perfect fit, really, really strong. I'd also have it up there in the top two or three all time first wave ska songs.

Jon (31:25)
I agree.

Mark (31:28)
Next up, Jimmy Cliff sitting in limbo.

Jon (31:31)
He wrote this song about kind of living in two worlds, that being England and Jamaica. And it also has a Marvin Gaye, even like a James Taylor sort of vibe to it. it's a much more pop sensibility type of song than pretty much anything else we hear on the soundtrack. It is a good song and it it fits well within the movie, but it's more like I said, more of a pop song, not so much that ska reggae sound we've been hearing for most of the album.

Mark (31:54)
The album closes off with two songs we've already heard. We hear You Can Get It If You Really Want by Jimmy Cliff again, and we hear The Harder They Come again. As a listener, I can barely tell the differences between these versions and the earlier ones we heard. I know in a lot of early reggae ska they do repeat different versions of the song later on in the album, maybe as a reprise, maybe as a demo, maybe as a live cut, etc. etc. in this case, it's basically the same song.

Jon (32:20)
I was gonna say the same thing. It's not the actual version of the Howard They Come that he's doing in the studio in the movie, which I think would have been a kind of a cool ad to the record. Because he does does some improvisational lyrics and things like that in the middle of the the movie. these like I said, especially you can get if you really want, sounds pretty much identical. You might be there might be a couple bars extended here or there on both of these. But yeah, I mean it kind of seemed like they had a short record and needed to fill it out a little bit.

Mark (32:51)
Looking at the critical reception for the harder they come. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film is scoring ninety-one percent on its tomato meter and eighty-two percent on its popcorn meter. I think those totals are criminal. It like this movie, the it's just people who really, really, really like the soundtrack.

Jon (33:15)
I'd agree. I when I saw those, I was like, did we watch the same movie? ⁓ I I think a a lot of it and h how I will actually, you know, review this movie in a bit here, is is through its cultural significance. ⁓ it influenced a ton of things I like, a ton of things you like. So I think in that sense, it is it is a very important movie. Would I give it a ninety-one? Mm-hmm. Especially not for the second half. I wouldn't. And I noticed here you had ⁓ it's six out of ten on IMDB. I'd probably put it even like six point five.

Mark (33:44)
I think that's a bit rich. I I'm going at a six or lower. The film received no awards and it has very mixed reviews from critics, so there's really not that much to say about the the critical reception for this film.

However, as we've noted, the soundtrack is super important. The soundtrack was added to the US National Recording Registry as culturally significant.

Jon (34:08)
As the album should be added, it's an excellent record. But for everything we watch, everything we listen to here in the rock and roll theatre, we always go over our way to try to find a one-star review. However, this time around, we don't have a one-star review. I guess we couldn't find one. We have a two-star review. So this is our first two star out of five review here on the rock and roll theatre. Mark, take it away.

Mark (34:29)
The majority of people reviewing this movie just love the soundtrack and they just love Jimmy Cliff and they love how it's culturally important. It's very hard to find somebody actually critiquing the film. So this is about as low as we can go. We're on Rotten Tomatoes for a two star review. Can't say that I enjoyed this. I can see how many do, but much of Jamaican culture is lost on me.

I understand the ideas of revolution and oppression, but the music and rhetoric doesn't seem to hold much power over me. This is a film specifically from that culture. Not much story to speak of, the camera work is mediocre. There just isn't much to grab hold of here unless you love reggae, which I don't.

Jon (35:26)
If you don't love reggae, why would you ever watch a movie starring Jimmy Cliff? That's your own fault, buddy.

Mark (35:31)
So looking at the lasting legacy of The Harder They Come, there's probably more to say about this than there was the critical reception. So again, it's all about the soundtrack. This film introduced reggae to wide audiences across the world in a very, very big way at the time. It's also cool to see Jimmy Cliff in a prominent role. It really helped him in in sense of him becoming an international star.

Jimmy Cliff singing the title track in the studio, as we've mentioned, is a very powerful scene and is definitely worth watching, even if you only want to give this three minutes. In terms of the movie as a whole, if you like the whole ska reggae punk subculture, it's worth watching once. I'm personally, I don't think I'm gonna watch it a second time. It is a must-watch if you like the clash. Now, there's many things going on here involving the clash. The movie is referenced by the clash.

Directly in the lyrics to Guns of Brixton. Jimmy Cliff actually does his own cover of Guns of Brixton on his 2012 Rebirth album. That was produced by Tim Armstrong from Rancid. The backing band was Tim Armstrong, along with The Aggrolites and The Interrupters. So a lot of Hellcat Records bands being pushed to the forefront here with Jimmy Cliff. That's very cool to see.

The movie also had a very big influence on Don Letts, who was the videographer for the Clash. The direct poll quote I have from my research was it was after seeing the film that I decided I wanted to express myself visually.

The movie also influenced later Jamaican films such as Rockers in nineteen seventy eight and countrymen in nineteen eighty two. Maybe we'll cover one of those on a future episode.

Jon (37:23)
We very well might. Also, we'd be remiss in in mentioning that, yes, we know the Clash have a movie called Rude Boy. Yes, at some point we will cover it. We will get to it, I promise. And I I ha we keep bringing up the clash because it is an important thing to mention here, is that through Don Let's through the Clash, the the how they interpreted this movie and put it into their own music, their own sound, their own style, and how that affected basically the wider British punk scene and even into the American like ska scene later on, all kind of stems from this movie and probably a lot of

it

from this soundtrack. I hear so much on this album that I can hear in bands today, even bands like No Doubt, they're a big commercial band. They're playing the sphere right now in Vegas and they have the words rock steady up in like, 300 foot high font. it's is the movie itself good? ⁓

Y the the crime part really is doesn't work. But it's so culturally important that I do think it is a good movie. if you're a big fan of, punk music, ska music, that sort of stuff, you should absolutely just watch it just once. Even if you turn it off once the crime stuff starts, it's a real good indication of hey, where a lot of that sound came from that a lot of bands borrowed after the fact. So overall, I I do think it's something worth watching, worth seeking out.

But as far as a crime drama goes, mm, I would pass that part.

Thank you very much for joining us tonight in the Rock and Roll Theatre. Once again, real quickly here before we go, if you could like, subscribe, comment, download, whatever the case may be. We got fun stuff on YouTube, we got fun stuff on TikTok, so you should check it out. But for now, the theatre is closed.