This article was first published in December 2020 (RIDDIM 01/2021).
Pliers: The girl called Maxine was my girlfriend. We were freshly in love, went dancing, to the movies… You know, the usual stuff young couples do.
Chaka Demus: Then something bad happened, which is why you had to write the song.
Pliers: Exactly, she got pregnant and after a few months she told me she had lost the child. But suspicious as I was, I thought she had had an abortion – ”Murder She Wrote”, you know? Today I wouldn’t say it that way. We were both very young, I would never have been able to take care of a baby. She must have realized that. Now I know that every person has rights, whether black or white, poor or rich, man or woman. If she knew that I was not able to take care of a child and then decided to take this step, which was certainly not easy for her either, then I should have respected that. Who wants to bring a child into the world just to see it suffer because you can’t feed it and send it to school? If I had the experience I have today, the song would never have been written.
Chaka Demus: As a young performer, I loved to hear Pliers sing. He had already recorded ”Murder She Wrote” before we became a duo. I went to him: ”Mr. Pliers, you have a really nice song that I would like to re-record with you . The song is ’Murder She Wrote’, and I have the perfect lyrics about a very beautiful girl in my neighborhood who unfortunately has a very bad character.” So we got together, combined his lyrics with mine, and they fit perfectly. We took it to Sly (Dunbar), who gave us the ”Bam Bam” riddim . We recorded the song in a small room at Sonic Sound Studio on Retirement Road in Cross Roads. It wasn’t even a real studio, it was the office of Jason Lee, the son of the owner Neville Lee. There was only one microphone. I sang ”Pretty face and bad character” and then passed the mic to Pliers so he could sing ”Murder she wrote”. Then it was my turn again.
Pliers: It was just like with a sound system when the deejays and singers pass the microphone around. We danced around each other with headphones on so we didn’t get in each other’s way. Just like in the Dancehall.
Chaka Demus: Raggamuffin Dancehall Style! It was truly unique. When the tune was done, I went downstairs and heard the riddim starting up again upstairs: ”Ahaa… Ahahaha…” Pliers immediately followed up with his cover of Toots’ ”Bam Bam.” Not even half an hour after ”Murder She Wrote”.
Pliers: Apart from us, the producer Rodguel ”Blackbeard” Sinclair, Jason Lee, Sly and the guitarist Lloyd ”Gitsy” Willis were also in the small room. The riddim consists only of drums and guitar. No bass, no keyboard…
Chaka Demus: Sly was the first to know immediately that it would be a hit. Big things a gwaan for Chaka Demus & Pliers! And he was right, it was our biggest hit, whether solo or as a duo. No matter where we go in the world, people know and love the song everywhere. They hear the typical guitar and start singing along: ”I know this little girl, her name is Maxine. Her beauty is like a bunch of roses. If I ever tell you ’bout Maxine, you would say I don’t know what I know…”
Pliers: And the song has no expiration date. It keeps getting covered and sampled. French Montana and Nicki Minaj used the melody for ”French”, Cuban reggaeton artist Osmani Garcia used it for ”El Taxi” with Pitbull and Sensato. And in ”Post To Be” there are several quotes from the lyrics by Omarion, Chris Martin and Jhene Aiko. And when they used the song in the 2001 soundtrack for ”Save The Last Dance”, it suddenly became really popular in the USA again.
Chaka Demus: And in Jamaica, everyone used our formula – a rough deejay and a sweet singer. Buju Banton and Beres Hammond, Shaggy and Rayvon, even Biggie Smalls and Puff Daddy. With ”Murder She Wrote” we initiated a lot in the early 90s.
