# Desmond Dekker: what is "(Poor Me) Israelites" about? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 30, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desmond-dekker-what-is-poor-me-israelites-about/358770 "2006-05-30T18:30:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desmond-dekker-what-is-poor-me-israelites-about/358770/1 "2006-05-30T18:30:33Z")
I’m hearing this song a lot since Desmond passed away, and I have come to realize that I don’t have the faintest idea what it’s about. Does anyone know how to translate the patois and decipher the meaning? I don’t see where it’s about Israel or the people of Israel, or really much of anything. Maybe it’s all of that King’s English obscuring the beauty of the lyrics to my ears. I dunno. How about you? ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desmond-dekker-what-is-poor-me-israelites-about/358770/2 "2006-05-30T18:35:05Z")
[Lyrics here](http://www.lyricplaza.com/music-lyric/Israelites-14791.htm). It appears to be a simple lament about the narrator’s poverty. I’m not sure what the significance of Israelites is in this context. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desmond-dekker-what-is-poor-me-israelites-about/358770/3 "2006-05-30T18:39:37Z")
[QUOTE=Crotalus] I’m not sure what the significance of Israelites is in this context. [/QUOTE] I think it’s a reggae/Rasta thing. Rastafarians believe themselves to be the true Israelites, descended from the Lost Tribes. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desmond-dekker-what-is-poor-me-israelites-about/358770/4 "2006-05-30T22:40:22Z")
Silly me, I thought it was about pharmacy-robbing drug addicts. Such a nice song, too. No, Biffy’s right, and apparently this is the reason: From Wiki > [@](#): > > In the 10th century BC, The Solomonic Dynasty of Ethiopia was founded by Menelik I, the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, who had visited Solomon in Israel. 1 Kings 10:13 claims “And King Solomon gave unto the Queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants.” On the basis of the Ethiopian national epic, the Kebra Negast, Rastas interpret this as meaning she conceived his child, and from this, they concluded that the black people are the true children of Israel, or Jews. Beta Israel black Jews have lived in Ethiopia for centuries, disconnected from the rest of Judaism; their existence gave some credence and impetus to early Rastafarians, validating their belief that Ethiopia was Zion. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desmond-dekker-what-is-poor-me-israelites-about/358770/5 "2006-05-30T22:56:42Z")
Thanks for the information, folks. It’s odd having spent 37 years wondering about something like that, eh? I still don’t get the connection between the rest of the lyrics and the title, but oh well. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desmond-dekker-what-is-poor-me-israelites-about/358770/6 "2006-05-30T23:44:52Z")
[QUOTE=fishbicycle] Thanks for the information, folks. It’s odd having spent 37 years wondering about something like that, eh? I still don’t get the connection between the rest of the lyrics and the title, but oh well. [/QUOTE] Well, even aside from any particular Rastafarian beliefs, it doesn’t seem too hard to imagine that a man whose family (within a few generations ago) was forcibly removed from their homeland and now who lives as a lower class citizen in the distant foreign land, might identify a little bit with the Biblical story of the plight of the Israelites during their exile in Babylon? ---
**Author:** ![geocoop60](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f17d59/32.png) [@geocoop60](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/geocoop60)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desmond-dekker-what-is-poor-me-israelites-about/358770/7 "2018-03-31T22:08:17Z")
Some how when this song was written & recorded someone misheard the words “me ears are a lite (a light) meaning that the writer had heard the truth, & understood them as 'The Israelites”! when you listen to the song are hear it as “me ears are a lite” then it makes since. He’s singing about the true sadness of the poverty that was & still in Jamica