Bob and Marcia were a Jamaican vocal duo, Bob Andy and Marcia Griffiths. They had a hit with Nina Simone's Young, Gifted and Black in 1970 and followed it up the next year with Pied Piper. In both cases there are original Jamaican versions and then popular versions with added orchestration. Pied Piper was actually written by the duo The changin' times ie Steve Duboff and Artie Kornfeld. They had reached the lower end of the charts with it in 1965. British pop singer Crispian St Peters (Robin Peter Smith) had then recorded it and scored a major hit in the summer of 1966. It had also been recorded by Cher and then Rita Marley.
The song's title is, of course, from the German folklore fairy tale that was written up in poetic form by Robert Browning in the nineteenth century. Hence the flutes and whistles on the versions under review here. In the original story the town of Hamelin is over-run by rats but the city officials hire a rat-catcher to rid the place of vermin. He wears a costume that looks somewhat like a court jester and plays a magic flute, which leads all the rats away. The town then refuses to pay him, so in anger he does the same thing with the flute, this time leading away the children.
The lyrical problem here is that the Pied Piper character is trying to persuade a reluctant and nervous character that all will be well if they will follow him. And yet if they know anything about the Pied Piper story, they will continue to be cynical. The tune is so joyful, however, especially in the reggae-fied Bob and Marcia version, it is hard not to be convinced that this man is worth following.
