SKANK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (8)
By:
October 28, 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.
Histories of pop music sometimes mis- or dis-title this lovely record “Last Train to Skaville.” At the level of content the Ethiopians’ first hit, cut in 1966, presents as a proto-Magical Mystery Tour-esque invitation to “ride non-stop” to the utopian no-place of Skaville, where you can be “free, man, free / free as a bird in the tree” — a quote perhaps, from the soundtrack to Jailhouse Rock, which persuasively suggests, to this impressionable listener, that we are in some way, shape, or form imprisoned by our daily routines, and that the song itself functions as a freedom train. But at the level of form — e.g., in terms of time signature, arrangement, vibe — “Train to Skaville” is instead an elegiac farewell of sorts to the ska genre and era.
“Skaville” does feature ska elements: choppy guitar chords, not to mention percussive toasting — shicka-shicka-shhh noises that transport the listener into that dreamy mindstate peculiar to train travel. But the record’s cool vibe, spacious tempo, its simple, strolling bass line, and its restrained horns produce a soulful “riddim,” i.e., not so much a ska but a rocksteady sound design. Toots and the Maytals’ “54-46 That’s My Number” would use the same riddim in 1968; Marcia Griffiths’ “Feel Like Jumping” would follow suit in 1978. With its minimalist chorus and refrain, “Train” is almost an advertisement for this particular rocksteady riddim.
Ethiopians’ founder Leonard Dillon, working as a stone mason at the time, was consumed with making a living in music. He’d moved to Trench Town in ’64, met the Wailers, and (as “Jack Sparrow”) recorded three songs with them, none of which were successful. Dillon then formed The Ethiopians, a harmony group, with Stephen “Tough Cock” Taylor and Aston “Charlie” Morrison. The title of one of their early records, “Owe Me No Pay Me,” suggests how unsuccessful they were. Morrison, who had a family to feed, quit the group. Dillon has explained how he found the means to self-produce what might have been the group’s final record: “By working on my trade, I met a man named Lee Robinson, he build house and sell it. I’m working and always singing, until one day he offered to finance a session and that session bring forth ‘Train To Skaville’.” The record was a hit, not in Jamaica but in the United Kingdom, thus helping to introduce Jamaican music to the wider world (and future ska punks)… and bringing richly deserved success at last to Dillon’s hard-working, sweet-singing crew.
Out of flop-sweat desperation, hybrid ska-rocksteady magic was born. Beep beep!
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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