“The Harder They Come” by Jimmy Cliff

Jimmy Cliff wrote and sang "The Harder They Come" as the theme to the 1972 film of the same name, and he starred in it too. Director Perry Henzell had met him in 1969 with an idea for a movie about a musician who turns to crime; during the shoot Cliff hit on the title phrase, and Henzell asked him for a song to match. In the film it passes as the work of his character, Ivanhoe Martin.

The session at Dynamic Sounds was filmed for the picture, Cliff supplying the melody and improvising the words over Gladstone Anderson's piano, Winston Wright's organ, the guitars of Hux Brown and Ranny Bop Williams, Jackie Jackson's bass and Winston Grennan's drums. It rolls easy with steel underneath, covers followed in droves, and Rolling Stone later ranked it 350th of its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.