Bob Marley was many things to different people, but he always hoped to bring people together with his music. He did not want anyone to be oppressed, of course, but no matter what ethnicity a person was, if one came with an open mind he was happy to have the person join in on the conversation.
Marley also grew up in a poor community where most people never had any hopes of escaping. The singer's observation of these conditions was apt and perfect and he sang so other people might feel the hope of getting out from under the thumb of those who kept them down. Bob Marley was as much a philosopher as a songwriter.
The five songs that follow do not do service to the depth of Marley's excellence when singing about the human condition. For a larger sampling, and if you are unfamiliar with Marley, you should go down your own path of finding his music. You will not be sorry.
Protest songs might never have been better-written than the ones Bob Marley wrote
"Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)" (1974)
The song is full of iconic and invigorating lines but perhaps none more than, "A hungry mob is an angry mob." In fact, there might not be any line ever better written about just how being poor and relatively helpless in one's financial possibilities can make one desperate for change. Plus, the tune involves the government intentionally keeping people impoverished so that government officials can get more than their share.
The track is from Marley's first real solo album, Natty Dread. Up until the point he made this album which was released in 1974, he had made records with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. This album set Marley on a new path from which he would always make his own way. He was incredibly intelligent in knowing how to handle the business side of music so much so many of the tracks on Natty Dread have a co-writing credit from a family member or friend so that his publishing company, Cayman Music, could not claim a stake. Marley wrote all the songs, however.
"Crazy Baldhead" (1976)
The album this track came from, Rastaman Vibration, became Bob Marley's first top-ten album in the United States and the record peaked at number 8. Like nearly all of Marley's long plays, the record is a mix of love songs, cool grooves, and straight-ahead political statements. "Crazy Baldhead," of course, is in the latter group.
"Baldhead" is rasta slang for an outsider who is not part of the movement to help poor people overcome their state. The song includes the biting, "Build your penitentiary, we build your schools," which speaks of systemic oppression. While people made very little money building schools that were extremely underfunded, the people in charge built prisons that the ill-educated could one day wind up in and the prisons would make money off of how many people they had incarcerated.
"I Shot the Sheriff" (1973)
Ironically, it took a white man, Eric Clapton, to turn this song into a number-one hit. The issue, other than the point of the song is Marley's people are being oppressed by a government that is unnaturally white, is that Clapton turns the song into crap. From reggae, Clapton's track is mostly soft rock with a tinge of blues. The sad part is that while many knew who Clapton was at the time, many had not heard of Marley who was by far the greater songwriter of the two.
Marley said the line, "I want to say 'I shot the police' but the government would have made a fuss so I said 'I shot the sheriff' instead." The intent of the song was a cry for justice and while Marley had the voice and power in Jamaica to bring people together and get noticed by officials, he was one of the very few. Possibly only actually shooting a sheriff and then being jailed for that would have brought international attention, but thankfully, Marley did not do that.
"Get Up, Stand Up" (1973)
One of Marley's better-known songs, the track went through several iterations before being a part of the album, Burnin'. This included trying to work through the song before they opened for Bruce Springsteen in 1973 at a New York club. This track also differs from many other Wailers tunes because Marley wrote the song with Peter Tosh instead of creating songs separately and Tosh hoped his songs would find a way to the album.
To be fair, Tosh's vocals on the track might be the strongest. While Marley was a better singer and was better with phrasing, Tosh's directness fit the song perfectly. But the words of this tune might be among the best for a person's cry to simply survive. With a phrase taken from Abraham Lincoln, this stanza is clear and powerful: "You can fool some people sometimes/But you can't fool all the people all the time/So now we see the light (watch you gon' do?)/We gonna stand up for our rights (yeah, yeah)."
"Redemption Song" (1980)
The instrumentation on this track is the simplest of any other on this list, but the words and vocal arrangement might be the most powerful. Written by Marley after he learned he would likely die from cancer, the strength he summons to come up with a song like this is something few artists could ever truly dream of doing. The track blooms with hope from oppression and any kind of pain.
But this was no off-the-cuff track. Marley worked on the exact chords and lyrics for a year and the lyrics are partly borrowed from activist Marcus Garvey, such as "emancipate yourself from mental slavery." The way Marley sings, "How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look," is not for the faint of heart. Marley lived every word he wrote, and the world is better off for that.