UB40

Released: June 9, 2008

Featuring: Hunterz (British)

Songwriter: UB40

Producer: UB40

It came out of the darkness
In the middle of the night
A black and winding serpent
With flashing crimson eyes

The camera lights the innocent
Their faces frozen in time
With fearful expectation of
Where next the beast will strike

It rumbled through the neighbourhood
With fiercely twinkling eyes
And waited at the doorway
For his tail to arrive

Its head came through the window
Its body through the door
And it pulled itself together
As it ran across the floor

And before our eyes, the fireflies
Were dancing round his head
We watched in screaming silence
As he was stolen from his bed

Suddenly, it's over
And not a word was said
Now no-one knows if he's alive or if he's dead

UB40 are an English reggae and pop band, formed in December 1978 in Birmingham. The band has had more than 50 singles in the UK Singles Chart. They have been nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album four times, and in 1984 were nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Group. UB40 have sold over 70 million records. The ethnic make-up of the band’s original line-up was diverse, with musicians of English, Irish, Jamaican, Scottish and Yemeni parentage.

Their hit singles include their debut “Food for Thought”, “Red Red Wine” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love”. Both of these also topped the UK Singles Chart, as did the band’s version of “I Got You Babe”. Their two most successful albums, Labour of Love (1983) and Promises and Lies (1993), reached number one on the UK Albums Chart.

On January 24, 2008, it was announced that Ali Campbell would be leaving the group after 30 years. It was reported by some Birmingham newspapers on 13 March 2008, that Maxi Priest would be the new lead singer of UB40 and had recorded a cover of Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” with the band.

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