Songfacts®:

• This is the song credited with giving "Reggae" its name. When asked about the song, Toots said: "People tell me that, but when I did it, I didn't know. There was the beat in Jamaica, reggae was played long before I started singing. And there was a slang, like a nickname for someone who don't dress properly - like if you are barefoot, people would call you 'streggae.' They say "hey, that guy is streggae, don't talk to him." If a girl don't dress properly, like don't have on any top, they call her streggae. So one morning, one Tuesday morning, we just said 'Let's go along and do some reggae.' Those days we'd just make stuff up, anything. A bird flies around the corner, you write a song about it. So we just say 'Do the reggay, do the reggay,' and that's it. A few words, y'know? And nobody paid it any mind until it started to go all over the world. I saw it in the Guinness Book of Records. So I thank God that I did something good, and I didn't even plan it."
• Toots and the Maytals were an influential band whose songs have been covered by the Clash and the Specials. The group was featured in reggae's greatest breakthrough event - The Harder They Come, the 1972 film that became an international sensation. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Amy - Chicago, IL, for above 2