1975 Johnny Nash: Tears On My Pillow

Throughout the Seventies, reggae purists would regularly deride Bob Marley for diluting the genre through importing commercial Western musical influences into the mix and daring to make it popular. Purists will always be purists, but I guess the reaction of those same people would have been akin to thrombosis on hearing this for the first time.

Though an African American rather than from Caribbean descent, Nash had of course already scored UK hits with 'I Can See Clearly Now' and 'There Are More Questions Than Answers' which may have been more root beer than roots reggae but still possessed its unmistakable stamp. 'Tears On My Pillow' is more of this same pop/reggae hybrid, though this time there's more of the latter than the former and the whole presents a mellow car crash of styles looking for a direction.

Kicking off as a straight MOR ballad, 'Tears On My Pillow' soon falls into gentle reggae shuffle that this time sounds more an awkward a marriage of convenience than a true attempt to fuse genres. There's a stilted awkwardness about the track that kills any reggae groove stone dead and even the suspiciously Western sounding female backing singers fight against the current rather than go with the flow. The effect of these two directions is one of turgidity and, apart from a half hearted spoken word section, Nash himself sounds like he's singing a much happier song than the lyrics suggest. More than this, his abrupt snapping at the 'pillow' and 'heart' on the chorus are more suggestive of frustration and impatience than heartbreak.

There's a decent song buried somewhere in 'Tears On My Pillow' and its one that would have revealed itself far more readily had all involved followed just one thread instead of pulling at three or four simultaneously. As it stands, it's difficult to get anything out of the song other than a harmless three minute diversion - pleasant enough, but it's not something you want to keep returning to.