It was the inimitable Lee Perry, AKA The Upsetter, who first alerted me to a small but vociferous subgenre in reggae music devoted to the castigation of all things papal. Over the last few days, as the cardinals gathered daily in the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope, I have been reacquainting myself with The Upsetter’s Baffling Smoke Signals, which I first purchased as 7in single in 1978.

The song was Perry’s response to the sudden death that same year of Pope John Paul I – whose 33-day reign was the shortest in papal history – and the subsequent election of John Paul II. Conspiracy theories abounded over the cause of the former’s death and they seem to have taken root in Perry’s then fevered imagination. In typical Upsetter style, the song plays at 33⅓ rpm – a nod to the length of John Paul I’s papacy? – and its lyrical invention is similarly surreal. It begins with various quotations from the Book of Revelations, all of which are given a Rastafarian spin before Perry elaborates his thoughts on the papal conclave. “Thousands gather in the valley, looking for the white smoke, but to their surprise, there comes black smoke,” he sings over a chirruping rhythm. “No more white smoke, it’s the end of your hope.”

The tradition of announcing the election of a new pope by puffs of white smoke from a chimney in the Vatican is also referred to, and satirised, in the song’s double-tracked chorus. “Baffling smoke signals in the Vatican city,” he chants. “Baffling smoke signals in the city of iniquity.” Legend has it that this was Perry’s final recording in the legendary Black Ark studio in Kingston, which he burned down in a fit of marijuana-fuelled paranoia in 1979. “There is nothing new under the sun,” he concludes, ever the prankster philosopher. “How come you giving us a new pope?”

The so-called “city of inequity” seemed to hold a particular fascination for The Upsetter, who also produced Max Romeo’s similarly denunciatoryFire Fe the Vatican, an anti-papal take on the singer’s classic single, War in a Babylon. Again, the Book of Revelations provides the inspiration. “Fire for the Vatican, blood for the Pope-man,” sings Romeo. “Who say? Revelations say.” A similar sentiment underscores Trinity’s declamatory Pope Paul Dead and Gone as wells as Big Youth and the Ark Angels Pope Paul Feel It – “The wicked run leave their bed – cos Pope Paul dead.” (The same song also contains the advice, “You better watch your step, Missus Queen.”)

More stirring still is Michael Prophet and Yabby You’s anthemic Mash Down Rome from 1979, in which the anti-papal message is indistinct amid a horns-driven production by the late Vivian Jackson (AKA Yabby You) that makes this song an enduring roots’ reggae classic. By 1981, DJs had inevitably jumped on board the anti-pope bandwagon. Toyan’sPope in a di Corner is a lyrical boxing match between the righteous dreadlocks man and the ungodly bald-headed man in which the Toyan is David to the pope’s Goliath.

More recently, Anthony B, a younger Rastafarian musician in the tradition of Burning Spear and Culture, released Fire Pon Rome (1996), a return to reggae’s tradition of pope-bashing. The chorus runs: “Fire Pon Rome, Fe Pope Paul an him scissors an comb/ Black people want go home, and Mount Zion a di righteous throne.” The song remains the same: Jah Rastafari is Earth’s rightful ruler, whatever the cardinals decide.