Desmond Dekker & the Aces Songs - The Israelites Lyrics

Desmond Dekker & the Aces - The Israelites

Desmond Dekker & the Aces - The Israelites Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Best Of Desmond Dekker
Released: 1969

The Israelites Lyrics

Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,
so that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,
So that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

My wife and my kids, they are packed up and leave me.
Darling, she said, I was yours to be seen.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Shirt them a-tear up, trousers are gone.
I don't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

After a storm there must be a calm.
They catch me in the farm. You sound the alarm.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Poor me, the Israelite.
I wonder who I'm working for.
Poor me, Israelite,
I look a-down and out, sir.

Writer/s: THOMPSON, CHARLES
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

The Israelites

Decker (from The Metro newspaper, April 18, 2005): "It all happened so quickly. I didn't write that song sitting around a piano or playing a guitar. I was walking in the park, eating corn. I heard a couple arguing about money. She was saying she needed money and he was saying the work he was doing was not giving him enough. I relate to those things and began to sing a little song - "You get up in the morning and you slaving for bread." By the time I got home it was complete. And it was so funny, that song never got out of my mind. It stayed fresh in my head. The following day I got my little tape and I just sang that song and that's how it all started."

Dekker (born Desmond Dacres) was raised in Kingston, Jamaica and trained as a welder before singing. He formed the Aces and teamed up with hit producer Leslie Kong in 1966 (with whom he worked until Kong's death in 1971). He has over 20 Jamaican #1 hits and 2 other UK Top 10 hits: "It Mek" and "You Can Get It If You Really Want." He enjoyed a revival in the UK in the early 1980s thanks to the two-tone movement. Dekker died of a heart attack in 2006 at age 64.