Stiff Little Fingers / Go For It (Remastered) / 1981
Roots Radicals Rockers and Reggae
urgent but hopeful, almost evangelical
A punk band borrows the vocabulary and cadence of roots reggae to preach unity across sectarian lines, turning a dancefloor chant into a direct appeal for peace. It's less a story than a sustained incantation, repeating simple imperatives until they function like a mantra.
peace and reconciliation cross-genre solidarity anti-sectarianism collective responsibility music as political unity
Who's speaking
A collective voice addressing a 'you' that stands in for a whole community of reggae-loving radicals; the speaker positions itself as part of that community rather than above it, using 'we' to blur any distance between singer and audience
What happens
The song doesn't develop a plot so much as build an argument through accumulation: it opens by naming and greeting its audience, moves to demands for peace across geography, then into a listing of things to discard (guns, hunger, fighting, grudges), then into ethical instruction about caring for the vulnerable and sharing resources, before returning to the peace demands with added intensity
How it's built
Built on a call-and-response chant structure borrowed directly from reggae/dub conventions -- a repeated three-line roll call functions as the chorus, interrupted by verses that escalate from abstract peace wishes to concrete ethical commands. There's no real bridge or key change in content; the structure instead builds through additive repetition, each verse stacking a new behavior onto the 'throw away' list until the final repetition piles multiple phrases together almost breathlessly
Section by section
Opening chant
The song introduces its community before saying anything about them politically -- simply naming the roots and radicals and tying them to the act of moving to reggae. This establishes identity through shared culture before the song pivots to ethics.
First peace verse
“peace in the ghettoes all round about”
The geographic sweep (east, west, north, south) universalizes the appeal beyond any single conflict, though the mention of ghettoes grounds it in lived urban hardship rather than abstract pacifism.
Throw away list
Each item discarded -- weapons, hunger, fighting, grudges -- escalates from the literal to the emotional, suggesting that structural violence and interpersonal resentment are equally responsible for perpetuating conflict.
Itren and sistren verse
“on discrimination does violence breed”
Borrowing Rastafarian terms for brotherhood and sisterhood, this section makes the song's thesis explicit: prejudice is identified as the root cause of violence, not merely a symptom of it.
Comfort the afflicted
A shift toward communal care -- protecting the elderly and the young -- broadens the song's politics from avoiding conflict to actively building a just society, before the exclamation that gives the album its title breaks in as a rallying cry.
Equal rights verse
The closing verse ties economic justice (sharing food) directly to crime reduction and links liberty to freedom in a tight causal chain, making the song's politics most concrete just before the final repetition of the chorus.
Craft
- anaphora
- The repeated 'throw away the...' construction and the recurring 'peace in/peace up' lines create a litany effect, turning political demands into something closer to liturgy or protest chant
- genre pastiche
- A Belfast punk band adopts reggae patois and song structure wholesale, signaling solidarity between punk and reggae's shared outsider status and anti-establishment politics of the late 1970s/early 80s UK scene
- direct address
- The constant 'you roots, you radicals' naming pulls the listener into the role being described, making the audience complicit in the call for unity rather than passive observers
- causal reasoning as rhetoric
- Lines framing discrimination as the root of violence function as argument rather than imagery, giving the song an almost didactic, sermon-like logic
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats this as a direct, if simplified, protest anthem: written by a Belfast band during the Troubles, its insistence on cross-communal peace and its warning that discrimination breeds violence read as a pointed response to sectarian conflict, even though the lyric never names Northern Ireland specifically. The reggae borrowing isn't incidental -- punk and reggae audiences in Britain at the time shared venues and politics, so the song can also be heard as a tribute to that alliance and to reggae's own tradition of 'roots' protest music. A secondary reading is that the song is intentionally non-specific, aiming for universal applicability rather than being tied to any one conflict, which is part of why its demands stay general (peace, equality, sharing) rather than naming factions or events.
Context
Stiff Little Fingers formed in Belfast in 1977 amid the Troubles, and their early work is often read through that lens even when lyrics avoid explicit local references. By 1981's Go For It, the band had relocated and broadened their sound and subject matter somewhat; this track's embrace of reggae phrasing reflects the broader punk scene's affinity with reggae and dub culture in late-70s/early-80s Britain. I'm not certain of specific biographical details behind this song's composition beyond what's audible in the lyric and the band's general history.
Listen for
- the shift in rhythm or vocal delivery when the chant returns versus the more instructive verses
- how the 'throw away' list keeps adding new words in the final repetition, piling items on top of each other
- any audible reggae/dub production touches (echo, off-beat skank) underscoring the lyrical homage
- the moment the album's title bursts out mid-song as an exclamation rather than a sung line
- whether the band's punk vocal delivery sits in tension with or smoothly inhabits the reggae phrasing
About Stiff Little Fingers
Stiff Little Fingers is a Northern Irish punk rock band from Belfast. They formed in 1977 at the height of the Troubles, which informed much of their songwriting.
1977 - present / United Kingdom
Full biography and catalogue