Just Be Good To Me

"I don't care about the other girls

Just be good to me..."

Such a heavy record.

The intro is so melancholy and grandiose I feel I have to get to my feet to listen to it like some knackered veteran hauling themselves up for The Star-Spangled Banner.

The lyric observes the time-honoured female-vocal tradition of 'shit on me, it's fine, just get on with it' best exemplified by 'Stand By Your Man', 'Don't Explain' (it's the Nina version for me) or Bobbie Gentry's 'I Wouldn't Be Surprised'.

A Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis production, it is perhaps second only to 'Sexual Healing', in the 'famous use of an 808' stakes.

Norman Cook's cover, 'Dub Be Good To Me', lent heavily on The Clash's 'Guns of Brixton' and sampled the harmonica from Morricone's 'Once Upon A Time in the West'. The opening and closing line, 'tank fly boss walk jam nitty gritty/you're listening to the boy from the big bad city, this is jam hot, this is jam hot', was from Johnny Dynell's 1983 hit 'Jam Hot', which was recently reswizzled by Tensnake.

Distressingly, 'Dub Be Good to Me' was covered in 2002 by Faithless and Dido for a Warchild charity album. Surely one of the most sinister pop collaborations of all time.