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BY LUIS BUENAFLOR JR.
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Friday, March 3, 2017
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”Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but our self can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
‘Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it’s just a part of it
we’ve got to fulfill de book”…
– Robert Nesta Marley aka Bob Marley
PERHAPS the most personal and poignant song from the late singer/songwriter Robert Nesta Marley or more popularly known as Bob Marley. For the uninitiated, Bob Marley is “reggae music.” Yes, you may argue that Bob Marley did not invent “reggae” nor was he the only “reggae” artist, but you must agree with moi that because of him the once obscure and ethnic music from the island of Jamaica became one of the most popular musical genres today.
For the artistically challenged, “reggae” is “a style of popular music with strongly accented subsidiary beat, originating in Jamaica. Reggae evolved in the late 1960s from Ska and other local variations on Calypso and Rhythm and Blues and became widely known in the 1970s through the work of Bob Marley. Its lyrics are much influenced by Rastafarian ideas.”
And “Ska” is “a style of fast popular music having a strong offbeat and originating in Jamaica in the 1960s, a forerunner of reggae.
Finally, “Rastafarian” – “A member of the Rastafarian religious movement, Rastafarians have distinct codes of behavior and dress, including the wearing of dreadlocks, the smoking of cannabis, the rejection of Western medicine and adherence to a diet that excludes pork, shellfish and milk.”
I guess we’re more or less clear here and hopefully you won’t get lost in translation. And now back to the topic on hand.
“Redemption Song” stands out by itself as it is so unlike almost all of Bob Marley’s songs. If you heard it for the first time you won’t even say it’s a song by a “reggae” artist.
There’s none of that familiar “reggae” offbeat, it’s just Bob Marley and an acoustic guitar, almost Bob Dylan-like.
I guess I don’t need to rub it in and introduce who Bob Dylan is. For God’s sake the man just won the Nobel prize for Literature; you must have read it somewhere or saw it on CNN or BBC.
From Wikipedia: “At the time he wrote the song, circa 1979, Bob Marley had been diagnosed with cancer in his toe that later took his life. According to Rita Marley, ‘he was already secretly in a lot of pain and dealt with his own mortality’, a feature that is clearly apparent in the album, particularly in this song.
“Unlike most of Bob Marley’s tracks, it is strictly a solo acoustic recording, consisting of him singing and playing an acoustic guitar, without accompaniment.”
In 2004, Rolling Stone placed the song at #66 among “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” In 2010, the New Statesman listed it as one of the Top 20 Political Songs.
In 2009, Jamaican poet and broadcaster Mutabaruka chose “Redemption Song” as the most influential recording in Jamaican music history.
To fully appreciate Bob Marley’s message here’s the rest of “Redemption Song”:
Old pirates, yes, they rob I,
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my ‘and was made strong
By the ‘and of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
Won’t you help to sing
these songs of freedom?
‘Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but our self can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
‘Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it’s just a part of it
we’ve got to fulfill de book
Won’t you help to sing
these songs of freedom?
‘Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but our self can free our mind
Have no fear for atomic energy
‘Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall dey kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it’s just a part of it
we’ve got to fulfill de book
Won’t you help to sing
these songs of freedom?
‘Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs
All I ever had
Redemption songs
these songs of freedom
Songs of freedom.
“Redemption Song” urge us to “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery” because “None but ourselves can free our minds.” These lines are from a speech by Marcus Garvey in Nova Scotia sometime October 1937 and published in his Black Man magazine:
“We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind…”/PN
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