THE THANKS WE GET

Listen to THE THANKS WE GET by Junior Byles.

One thing about these "themed" weeks is you get to pick songs you might not otherwise pick. I've always loved Junior Byles, but if I had a free hand to pick any of his sides, it might not be--probably wouldn't be--this one.

The Thanks We Get is a Black Ark production, which means it's likely to be awesome, but also it might be pretty weird. In that regard this is a typical Lee Perry offering. The oddest feature of all is that Lee has his young son Omar toasting over the top of Junior Byles's vocals. And "toasting" is a pretty generous description of what's going on! At one point little Omar just kinda babbles "Poppa! Poppa! Poppa!" squarely in the middle of the mix. It's kinda cute, kinda annoying, just like Double Dutch Bus, but even stranger.

Photo: New York detail (2).