"In the late 1960’s, producer and mad scientist Lee “Scratch” Perry must have been spending quite a bit of time in front of the boob tube. I’m not sure how many hours exist in his day, but considering the number of TV and movie references given to his productions at this time, he must have been a walking IMDB. At the point in time this present tune was released in 1969, spaghetti westerns were his thing, as many titles bore names connected to that scene. None was more popular musically than “Return of Django”, of course, but he had many other (mostly organ) led instrumentals with big and small screen titles, such as “Return of the Ugly”, “Man from MI5”, “Night Doctor”, “Thunderball”, “Clint Eastwood”, “High Plains Drifter”, “For A Few Dollars More”, and on and on. “Taste of Killing” was named after the 1966 movie of the same name, starring Craig Hill. While the music’s mood isn’t as threatening or dark as the title might suggest, just knowing Scratch was controlling the session ensures he fueled the session with the needed swagger and attitude to bring it the life it needed. A few years past this he had moved on to kung fu movies, best crystallized with the epic cover art to his quirky and awesome album ‘Kung Fu Meets the Dragon’. Really one can check the titles of his songs at any phase of his golden period (that is, the entire 60’s and 70’s) and easily spot the odd pop culture reference, despite the music behind the name more than likely being entirely left field. Scratch probably did have a taste of killing, now that I think about it. Killing norms."
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