"I Could Have Been a Contender" - Wobble, Jah

Compilation Album

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Full Track Listing:


Disc One:
  • Public Image (PiL)
  • Fly 2
  • Ketmagyl (Don’t Go Away) – Featuring Yulduz Usnamova
  • Visions Of You – Featuring Sinead O’Connor
  • Mehmeda Majka Bubage
  • Becoming More Like God – Featuring Analise Drekker
  • Mistralazul 2 – Featuring Smoke City’s Nina Miranda
  • I Offer You Everything
  • Shout At The Devil – Featuring Natasha Atlas
  • Blacksmith
  • Blacksmith Dub
  • Elevator Music 3 – Featuring Harry Beckett
  • Josey Walsh – Featuring Sinead O’Connor
  • Tyger Tyger
  • Requiem III – Featuring Sussan Deiheim
    Disc Two:
  • Poptones (PiL)
  • Betrayal Dub
  • How Much Are They – Featuring Holger Czukay and Jaki Leiezert
  • Invaders Of The Heart Mix 2
  • Swan Lake
  • Snakecharmer – Jah Wobble, The Edge & Holger Czukay
  • Songs Of Innocence
  • Fly 1
  • Funeral March
  • Lam Tang Way Dub – Featuring Molam Lao
  • The Dunes – Featuring Shane McGowan from The Pogues
  • So Many Years
  • Lam Saravane Dub
  • A Man I Knew
  • Elevator Music 1
    Disc Three:
  • Gone To Croatan – Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Bernie Worrell
  • Spinner – Featuring Brian Eno
  • A13
  • Passage To Hades – Featuring Evan Parker
  • The Mystery Of Twilight Part 2 – Featuring Bill Laswell, Harold Budd & Jaki Liebezeit
  • Left Where It Fell – Featuring Brian Eno
  • The River Suite (Extract)

Background Information

This 3-CD compilation was put together as a look back at the career of Jah Wobble. Wobble got his start with Public Image Ltd (PiL) and later with his own Invaders of the Heart. In 1983, working on a solo project, he worked with Holger Czukay of Can, and The Edge of U2. That project would be released on Island records as “Snake Charmer” EP. The EP featured five tracks. The Edge was listed as participating on three of the tracks, “Snake Charmer” (slide guitar and soloist), “Hold on to Your Dreams” (lead guitar and effects), and “Snake Charmer (Reprise)” (slide guitar and soloist). One of those tracks, “Snake Charmer” features on this 3-CD compilation.

Wobble recalls the recording: “The producer here was top New York DJ/remixer Francois Kervorkian, and the album was “Snake Charmer”, which features The Edge (nice down to earth fella) from U2 and Holger. Check out the latter’s mental French horn solo. This was also the first time I came across the infamous Lin Drum, one of the first programmable drum machines, it is a feature of this track. This era, the early to mid eighties saw the rapid development of midi technology; this session was my introduction to the digital domain. It was quite an eye opener for me. I gave Francois a tough time on occasion, but he did ok. And I learned a lot.”

There was an error when the recordings were pressed in the US, and this resulted in alternate versions of the tracks being used on the UK vs the US pressings of the original EP. Although “Hold on to Your Dreams” was the same on both releases, “Snake Charmer” and “Snake Charmer (Reprise)” were different on the two pressings. The US version has a vocal that starts at 1:24, and the horn solo is at 0:39. The UK version has the vocal starting earlier at 0:39 and the horn starts at 1:10 in that version. The vocals in each version of the track are different. The version featured on this 3-CD compilation is the UK version of “Snake Charmer”.

Other songs have been released on CD from the “Snake Charmer” project on other compilations. See the entry for “Snake Charmer” for full information.

Liner Notes

Snake Charmer:
Written by Wobble, Marland, Czukay, Kervorkian. Performed by Jah Wobble, The Edge & Holger Czukay.

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