Is there any genre of music that is more linked with a specific phrase than Ska music and “Pick it up”?
Maybe heavy metal and “Hail satan”?
Or Jazz music and “do-be-do-bap-di-she-wah”?
The phrase ‘Pick it up’ is in so many ska songs (Superman by Gold Finger, Don’t Stop Skankin’ by Reel Big Fish, etc.) it’s essentially impossible to actually name them all.
There was even a recent documentary named after the phrase, that’s how closely tied to the genre it is.
But where did the phrase actually come from?
Who invented it?
Why those words and what do they mean?
And why has it become so linked with Ska music?
Origins of the phrase
The origins of the phrase are a little murky, as are the origins of Ska music itself.
In this blog post I will discuss what is generally agreed to be the origins of the phrase, but you will quickly see why it’s not exactly a cut and dry answer.
To cover it the best I can, we need to discuss two important elements: Prince Buster and Scat singing.
Prince Buster
Cecil Bustamente Campbell was a Jamaican singer-songwriter, who was huge in the early days of Ska music.
Some legends even say that he invented the word Ska, but that’s another blog for another day.
Cecil started releasing music in 1961 as Prince Buster, with early hits like Madness and One Step Beyond (No prizes for guessing which band he was a big influence on…).
But the point we’re coming to is the Prince Buster song ‘Al Capone’, released in 1964.
The song includes a very classic Ska guitar riff and Prince Buster Scatting/Toasting.
What does that mean? Well, let’s take a detour.
Scatting & Toasting
Nowadays we consider Scatting to be synonymous with Jazz, but Scatting and Toasting were pretty popular techniques at the time and used in a lot of Caribbean-inspired music.
Scatting & Toasting may sound like gibberish sounds, and… well, that’s because they are, though there is a difference between the two.
Scatting is the act of improvising with words and sounds, often a humorous way, to entertain the audience.
Scatting is what’s being used in songs like the Avocado Seed Soup Symphony (The BEST thing I found while researching this post)
Toasting is more about repeating or chanting a sound or syllable to a backing beat, to become part of the music, like an extra instrument.
“A common technique was the rapid-fire repetition of words, like “ska-ska-ska” or “get-up-get-up-get-up” also employed were locomotive-noises (“ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch”), hiccups (“he-da, he-da, he-da”) and grunts.”
Skabook
Prince Buster would use Toasting a lot in his music, which then brings us back to the song Al Capone.
Prince Buster – Al Capone
This song is pretty laid back on the lyrics.
There are some spoken-word lines from the point of view of Al Capone, but mostly the song is the repeated guitar riff and Prince Buster Toasting, sounding like an engine, chugging the song along.
The noises he makes while Toasting do vary, and at one point, around 2.20, he makes a noise that is very difficult to write as a word.
My closest approximation would be “Hyuickp”.
Basically, this noise is eventually what led to the phrase ‘Pick it up’.
As someone on a Reddit thread pointed out, if you weren’t already aware of the phrase ‘pick it up’, then you may not hear it here, but it’s generally agreed that this sound is the start of the phrase ‘pick it up’.
So what happened next? How did we get from a noise to a definite phrase?
Madness – One Step Beyond
So Prince Buster invented that… noise. So what?
Well, he also was hugely influential on a band that came to help define the second wave of Ska: Madness.
One of their songs, ‘One Step Beyond’, from their 1979 debut album, was a cover of the Prince Buster hit from 1964.
At the start of the song, the band tries to impersonate Prince Busters toasting from songs like Al Capone and One Step Beyond.
However their version of toasting definitely changes to be more like words than sounds.
Their version of the “Hyuickp” noise definitely gets closer to the phrase ‘Pick it up’ that we all know today.
The sounds morphed into the phrase ‘Pick it up’, but retained its original purpose, being a rhythmic sound that fit well with the music being played.
There is no ‘meaning’ behind the phrase, it’s basically just something that can easily be repeated quickly along with a tune.
First Usage
As far as I can tell, the first song to be called Pick it Up was by The Employees in 1980.
The song is a very good example of second-wave Ska: a very fast paced song that is designed to skank to.
The story of the song is about a guy walking down the street and seeing a man dressed in classic two-tone attire: a fedora and a pin-striped suit and wearing a ring by Blue Beat, an R&B label of the time.
The phrase ‘Pick it up’ here is part of the lyrics, but not really a part of the story.
The phrase is repeated quickly in two 9 times each, almost as an interlude before the lyrics begin again.
Uses outside of Ska
Ska obviously don’t have the copyright to the phrase ‘Pick it up’, and so it does exist in other places. Let’s take a brief look at some, including those from around the time it started to get popular in Ska music.
Dex – Pick it up
There is a very popular song by the rap artist Dex called ‘Pick it up’.
In fact, if you Google the phrase, that song is likely to be the first result you see.
Unsurprisingly though, this song has nothing to do with Ska.
Cecilia – Simon and Garfunkel
This is a very strange one, but this song does indeed use the phrase.
At 1.44, one of them says ‘Pick it up’ twice in a row, though very quietly and in the background.
But it is there!
And he says it in a fast style, so I am not sure if it’s meant to be part of the song, or he is talking about playing faster.
Live Wire – Pick it Up
Back in the 80s, Live Wire were a decent rock band who never got the respect or appeal they arguably deserved.
They released an album called Pick it Up in 1979.
This means that this album predates the song by the Employees, although the album is very much a light rock affair, with very little comparisons to anything specifically Ska.
The Knack – Pick it Up
Before their breakout hit of ‘My Sharona‘ in 1979, the Knack did a song called Pick it Up, in 1976.
This is a pop song however and again is not Ska-related in any way however.
I consider it more of a coincidence than an element of the story of the Ska phrase.
Wrap Up
The origins of the phrase “Pick it up” may be murky and it may have taken a long time for the phrase to properly form.
But now we are left with a phrase that is so linked with the Ska genre that I don’t see it ever really going away.
It’s a small phrase and Ska may not exactly be the most popular genre of music in the world, so other musicians will still use it, but in the heart of every Ska fan, we know that it’s ours.
