The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Royal Oil" from Let's Face It (The Last Angry Rude Boy)
Skammentary: Sometimes we forget just how sensational the Summer of Ska was. "Royal Oil" reached № 22 on the popular-music charts, the third single from Let's Face It to chart. This is all the more impressive because "Royal Oil" isn't a song about romance or heartbreak, or a snarky ode to sarcasm & celebrity, but an earnest, catchy anti-drug song. Going back to the earliest days of ska, when the various Jamaican sound systems pleaded with rude boys to mend their wicked ways & stop thieving, robbing, & vandalizing, ska at its best has always had a social conscience (even if some too-cool-for-school music critics dismissed the anti-violence title track, "Let's Face It," as "preachy").
"Royal Oil, come on bubble and boil,
Stabs like dagger, make you stagger, on a hot tin foil,
Mind your mind or it will surely spoil,
Then you sleep down in the soil,
Nothing come from nothing, come on
Royal Oil.
"When you smoke or poke the poison,
You lose the chance to be tomorrow,
(Don't lose your chance)
Look out on the horizon,
And see the sadness, the pain, and the sorrow…
"Royal Oil has cut many down to size,
Spikes gonna strike the weak and strong alike,
And then forever and ever close those eyes,
Make up your mind to keep your mind up,
And to your life be loyal…
Make up your mind, keep up your mind,
And to your life you've got to be loyal…"
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