SKANK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (3)
By:
October 9, 2025
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… ska records! PLAYLIST HERE. Series edited by Josh Glenn.
I’m pretty sure the first time I heard Prince Buster’s “Ten Commandments” was on a San Francisco Bay Area college radio station some time in the mid-to-late ’80s. “The Ten Commandments of man, given to wo-man, through the inspiration of I, Prince Buster,” it began. Here’s a taste of what, in 1967, a female reviewer at the New Pittsburgh Courier called the song’s “strong pertinent lyric.”
Three
Remember to kiss and caress me
Honor and obey me, in my every whim and fancy
Seven days a week and twice on Sundays
Because at no time will I ever be tired of I-T “it”…
and…
Nine
Thou shall not commit adultery
For the world will not hold me guilty if I commit murder …
Mind blown by the combo of rank misogyny, echo-laden vocals, and repetitive ska beat (DOO-doo-doo-DOO-doo-doo), I immediately undertook a quest to hear the song again. In the years before the internet, this wasn’t easy. Once, I called a radio station and requested the song, only to have the DJ play The Moonglows’ “Ten Commandments of Love,” a fine song, but not remotely Prince Buster’s bilious masterpiece. Not even close.
I finally found a copy of the 45 in a Milwaukee used record shop in the early ’90s. As a proud feminist, I found it darkly hilarious and particularly ironic to sandwich “Ten Commandments” between, say, Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” and Leslie Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” when making a mixtape.
Back then, I didn’t know about Princess Buster’s answer song, “Ten Commandments of Woman to Man,” but even if I had, I’m not sure it would have made the cut. The song consists of the Princess (vocalist Patsy Todd) declaiming a new set of lyrics over Buster’s original track. But perhaps because these lyrics were also written by Buster, it’s clear who retains the upper hand in this battle of the sexes. For example, as pointed out by Heather Augustyn in Women in Jamaican Music (2020), the Princess’s response to the threatened violence of Buster’s ninth commandment (see above) is that the world will not hold her guilty if “for spite, I date your best friend.” In other words, if she commits adultery, he will kill her; if he commits adultery, she will also commit adultery — a murderable offense in his book.
Would I still put “Ten Commandments” on a mixtape today, when a woman’s right to bodily autonomy has evaporated as fast as you can say “stare decisis,” and any number of retrograde influencers and politicians seem willing to take Buster’s words as prescriptive literature? Perhaps, if only to follow it up with Saffiyah Khan’s masterful 2019 reinterpretation. “Thou shall not listen to Prince Buster or any other man offering kindly advice in matters of my own conduct,” she sings. “I shall be seen and I will be heard.”
SKANK YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Lucy Sante on Margarita’s WOMAN COME | Douglas Wolk on Millie’s MAYFAIR | Lynn Peril on Prince Buster’s TEN COMMANDMENTS | Mark Kingwell on The [English] Beat’s TEARS OF A CLOWN | Annie Nocenti on Jimmy Cliff’s MISS JAMAICA | Mariane Cara on The Selecter’s ON MY RADIO | Adam McGovern on The Specials’ GHOST TOWN | Josh Glenn on The Ethiopians’ TRAIN TO SKAVILLE | Susannah Breslin on The [English] Beat’s MIRROR IN THE BATHROOM | Carl Wilson on Prince Buster / Madness’s ONE STEP BEYOND | Carlo Rotella on The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ THE IMPRESSION THAT I GET | Rani Som on The Bodysnatchers’ EASY LIFE | David Cantwell on Desmond Dekker’s 007 (SHANTY TOWN) | Francesca Royster on Joya Landis’ ANGEL OF THE MORNING | Mimi Lipson on Folkes Brothers’ / Count Ossie’s OH CAROLINA | Alix Lambert on The Specials’ TOO MUCH TOO YOUNG | Marc Weidenbaum on Dandy Livingstone’s RUDY, A MESSAGE TO YOU | Heather Quinlan on Fishbone’s MA & PA | Will Hermes on The [English] Beat’s WHINE & GRINE / STAND DOWN MARGARET | Peter Doyle on The Skatalites’ GUNS OF NAVARONE | James Parker on The [English] Beat’s SAVE IT FOR LATER | Brian Berger on The Upsetters’ RETURN OF DJANGO | Annie Zaleski on The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ SOME DAY I SUPPOSE | Deborah Wassertzug on The Bodysnatchers’ TOO EXPERIENCED | Dan Reines on The Untouchables’ I SPY FOR THE FBI.
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