And we’d ventured into politics with Fight the Power. But when the younger brothers came into the lineup in the 70s, we had our first No 1 album with The Heat Is On. The Isley Brothers had been going since the 1950s and set a very high standard with songs such as Shout. I played them the song, and both of them looked at me with their eyes wide, like: “Where did that come from?” I was still down there playing when Marvin and our brother-in-law Chris Jasper came in. The last verse was: “Dress me up for battle, when all I want is peace / Those of us who pay the price, come home with the least / Nation after nation, turning into beast.” The Vietnam war had just ended, and a lot of people had paid a heavy price, but the song was more a message of hope and celebration than protest. The rest of the song came pretty quickly. Pete Seeger’s Turn! Turn! Turn! – a 1965 hit for the Byrds – had used a biblical passage, from Ecclesiastes: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven … ” Harvest for the World was a reference to a line – “Send labourers into the Lord’s harvest” – from the gospel of Matthew.
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Almost as soon as I started playing, I thought of the words: “All babies together, everyone a seed / Half of us are satisfied, half of us in need / Love is bountiful in us, tarnished by our greed / When will there be a harvest for the world?” I pretty much had the first two verses just like that. I’d just bought a new 12-string acoustic guitar and took it into our basement in New Jersey to try it out. As a songwriter, inspiration can strike at any time.