MAX ROMEO DEFENDS ‘WET DREAM’ - Insists song is different from today’s raunchy music

Before he became a Rastafarian roots singer, Max Romeo was shaking up the righteousness of the 1960s with raunchy lyrics, including those of his single Wet Dream.

The controversial song, with the hook " Lie dung gal mek me push it up, push it up, lie dung", was banned from the BBC but made Romeo an instant sensation among "skinheads" in the United Kingdom, as the song remained on the British charts for 26 weeks.

Assessing the criticisms of 'slack' music today, Romeo said the difference with Wet Dream is that it was never about promoting sexual messages.

"In 1969, I started this whole revolution, backed and defended by the skinheads in England at the time who were looking for something to grasp on to because they were getting bored with the 'children must be seen and not heard' and all these things that colonialist masters bring down to our parents who forced it unto us," Romeo, 77, told THE STAR. "So here I come with a song, ' Every time I go to sleep, I have wet dream'. What's wrong about wet dreams? Three quarters of the world end up with wet dreams. If you don't have a wet dream sometime in your life, you're not healthy." He labelled the song a successful protest.

"I've been rebelling against colonialism since I was nine years old and exposed to the nastiness that was taking place in the world," he said. "I didn't know it would spill over until today. I didn't know it [the song] would be used in movies ( Anita & Me in 2002) and things like that. But hey, Jah put me out there to do these things and it just happened. It wasn't meant to be what it is now. It wasn't that explicit, sexual brainwash that drives people to rape and murder. That wasn't the thought when I did this song."

He has put the suggestive single on his Banned and Censored album, which he occasionally revisits.

"I listen back and say to myself, it's not all that bad compared to what's happening now, but it shouldn't have been. Sex is supposed to be a sacred thing," he said.

Declaring that he isn't "anti-dancehall", the singer said lyrics have become too "skin out" and gangster centred.

"In some parts, I blame dancehall for the crime in Jamaica," he stated. "They train the young minds to think in that wasted manner... I don't know how we're going to get it back because we already tarnish roots music."

Romeo opined that many people don't want to hear roots music and recalled that 'back in the day', he, along with artistes like Bob Marley and Jacob Miller, preached peace and love.

"We never passed a group of people and not have our hands across the heart, bow we head, and say 'Peace and love my brother'. We lose that. The last time I tell a youth peace and love, him seh him nuh love man. We've lost all the good things about music in Jamaica ... ," he said.