Ska is a genre that lends itself well to absurdity. From Prince Buster, through Madness to Sublime and the Aquabats, humour has mixed well with the genre. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Tom Cridland’s first ska single “The Palm Tree,” is so perfectly brilliant, with its combination of nonsense lyrics and playful synth-driven downbeats.
As Cridland explained in an exclusive interview: “I wrote this after interviewing UB40 for the podcast. I had been listening to a lot of reggae. Then I got into the studio and everyone said we needed to make it more ska than reggae, which was a good call I think. I am not remotely qualified to do reggae!”
The Palm Tree is a perfect summer song. There’s another feature of its
absurdity – over the end sequence Cridland has incorporated a recording of John Lennon defending The Beatles as more revolutionary than The Rolling Stones. As a fan of classic music, and especially of The Beatles, this unexpected reference to his hero shows another side of Cridland’s persona – a more experimental side.
Cridland explains: “The John Lennon sound bite is just one of my favourite of his quotes. I love The Stones but I hate it when people listen to things just because they think it looks cooler to listen to a certain band or act. Like the notion The Stones are more “rock n’ roll’ than The Beatles. It’s how we’ve ended up in this absurd situation where the current mainstream pop culture has very low levels of genuine soulful artistry and is just the corporate marketing of the stars’ physical good looks, a manufactured “attitude” and vacuous songs written by teams of ten or more people. The idea that a band needs to stand for something to be credible is ridiculous – the only thing musicians should stand for is good music.”
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