[01 June 2023] Sure, this is smooth, soulful, and strictly roots. Sure, I like the Heptones, and I don't want to sound like I'm hating on them just for the sake of hate. And I wouldn't even go so far as to say the (blatantly) sxist lyrics are "offensive"; life is too short to get genuinely morally offended by pop song lyrics. But I must admit, I do find "I've Got The Handle" to be, if not "offensive" then certainly awkward, or even icky. Something about the crude rhyme of the opening couplet - "I've got the handle, baby, you've got the *blade* ,/Don't try to fight me, babe, 'cause you will need first *aid* ..." - and more than that, the disjunction between the sweet crooning *sound* of the vocals and the vicious toughness of the lyrical sentiment (I mean, they're singing a *hate* song like it's a *love* song!) - that suggests bathos more than anything else. I can take slack songs like the Heptones' earlier "Fattie Fattie", provided they sound genuinely ribald and good-natured; I can take mean angry woman-you-done-me-wrong songs like Peter Tosh's "Brand-New Second-Hand", provided that the anger in them sounds genuinely hard-eyed and righteous. But I can't take "I've Got The Handle." So help me, it just sounds embarrassing.
