Toots & The Maytals – Time Tough
With only three full months left to go, something I’ve said to close friends multiple times continues to ring true, namely that 2020 continues to be a real right fucker of a year…Just over the past weekend, I was trying to bring myself to write a tribute to Toots Hibbert, an absolute legend of Jamaican music, and like so many of the losses during this insane year, I just couldn’t fully bring myself to do it. Today we got word that Supreme Court justice and Feminist icon, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died…and after Bill Withers, Tony Allen, John Lewis and at least a dozen or so other giants, it’s tough to comprehend how much we’ve lost, and when we’ve barely even had time to grieve one loss, another arrives. It is a very tough time we are living through right now.
“Time Tough,” wasn’t written for these times, but it might as well have been. Most of the bad times it’s addressing are connected to economic and personal tragedy, but both of those are certainly felt by many over the past 7+ months and these opening lines certainly hit home in the current moment where every day runs into the next without any real relief in our seemingly unending despair.
I go to bed,
But sleep won’t come,
Get up in the night,
I couldn’t stand my feeling, no,
Early in the morning, Oh mercy,
It’s just the same situation…
Time tough, Time tough,
Everything is out of sight and so hard…
The song is one that I first found out about because Soul Coughing sampled it on “Down To This,” all the way back in 1994. I’d known Toots & the Maytals’ Ska era hits like “Ska War,” and the early reggae all-timer “Bam Bam,” (though I heard Sister Nancy’s cover first), as well as classics such as “Pressure Drop” (first heard through the Clash version), “Monkey Man” (first heard from the Specials’ cover) and “Sweet & Dandy,” but strangely I hadn’t really considered myself a fan. “Time Tough” struck me hard upon hearing it, because that sampled intro was so overtly funky, and the song itself so great, that it lead me to track down the 1972 album “Funky Kingston,” as well as 1976’s “Reggae Got Soul” (which I highlighted in 2011 here). I’m thankful that I’ve had multiple opportunities to play “Time Tough” out and about as a DJ, particularly at Funky Sole, where the song always went over well. That gruff, soulful voice Toots had was such a perfect compliment to the soulful Reggae he helped to pioneer (including being the first artist to include the term “Reggae” or “Reggay” in their releases) and the consistent quality of his performances will ensure that he, like many of the other legends who have passed this year are never forgotten. Rest In Peace to Toots, RBG, and the long list of giants we’ve lost in 2020, those losses still yet to inevitably come and also to dreams that have been deferred because of the insanity of this year.