movement culture people / the roads of creation

 

Bob Marley and the Wailers with the mighty "Exodus" 

I have always heard the lyric as "movement culture people" which I prefer to what I have just established is the actual lyric "movement of Jah people"

"movement culture people" expands outwards to include Neu! and all sorts, whereas "movement of Jah people" narrows to a religious meaning

Under "movement culture people", you could also file another song on this rather cool episode of Top of the Pops from 1977 -   "Roadrunner" 

albeit not a mimed performance by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers but a daft but enjoyable dance routine from Pan's People, or is it Legs and Co

The song got to #11 in the UK charts - amazing. But then "Marquee Moon" was a UK hit single too, it's in the chart rundown at the start of this episode in fact.

Richman has quite a case of adenoids, but it just adds to the gawky aura of amateurism.

But wait, there is another connection between the Wailers and Modern Lovers beyond the utopian motion vision  (and the word in common - "roads of creation" in "Exodus")

For later in that same year JR & and ML would have an even bigger UK hit with the trifle "Egyptian Reggae", an instrumental. #5 in the hit parade.

Again danced with some proto-Bangles nonsense by the resident troupe at TOTP

Here's JR himself doing the sideways dance thing

Egypt - well that's where Moses is leading the chosen people out of. As the song says

(Movement of Jah people) Send us another brother Moses

(Movement of Jah people) From across the Red Sea

The very first time I heard "Exodus" was not the original but a junglized version played at a 1994 festival in Clissold Park in Stoke Newington  by deejays from Exodus, the Luton rave collective.

I'd always assumed that the track was made by someone associated with Exodus  - but doesn't necessarily seem to be so, instead it's a kind of anthem-of-opportunity

Another "Exodus"-bassed track, this time the mode of deliverance is airplane