Bob Marley & The Wailers
"Redemption Song"
Single / B-side: "Redemption Song" (band version), "I Shot The Sheriff" (live)
Released: October 1980
Album: Uprising (Released: 0 June 1980)
Writer: Bob Marley
Label: Island / Tuff Gong
With Bob accompanying himself on Guitar, "Redemption Song" was unlike anything he had ever recorded: an acoustic ballad, without any hint of reggae rhythm. In message and sound it recalled Bob Dylan. Biographer Timothy White called it an 'acoustic spiritual' and another biographer, Stephen Davis, pointed out the song was a 'total departure', a deeply personal verse sung to the bright-sounding acoustic strumming of Bob's Ovation Adamas guitar.
songfacts: Redemption Song by Bob Marley & The Wailers
americansongwritter: Behind The Song: Bob Marley, "Redemption Song"
rollingstone: 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
"Redemption Song"
Single / B-side: "Redemption Song" (band version), "I Shot The Sheriff" (live)
Released: October 1980
Album: Uprising (Released: 0 June 1980)
Writer: Bob Marley
Label: Island / Tuff Gong
"Redemption Song" is a song by Bob Marley. It is the final track on Bob Marley & the Wailers' ninth album, Uprising, produced by Chris Blackwell and released by Island Records. The song is considered one of Marley's greatest works. Some key lyrics derived from a speech given by the Pan-Africanistorator Marcus Garvey.
Bob Marley & The Wailers, single 7" 1980
Bob Marley - "Redemption Song" (lyrics)
At the time he wrote the song, circa 1979, Bob Marley had been diagnosed with the 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". This was the last song Marley performed. He sang it from a stool at a show in Pittsburgh on September 23, 1980. Unlike most of Bob Marley's tracks, it is strictly a solo acoustic recording, consisting of Marley singing and playing an acoustic guitar, without accompaniment.
"Redemption Song" was released as a single in the UK and France in October 1980, and included a full band rendering of the song. This version has since been included as a bonus track on the 2001 reissue of Uprising, as well as on the 2001 compilation One Love: The Very Best of Bob Marley & The Wailers. Although in live performances the full band was used for the song the solo recorded performance remains the take most familiar to listeners.
Bob Marley And The Wailers' single: "Redemption Song"
Bob Marley And The Wailers - "Redemption Song" (band version)
The song urges listeners to "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery," because "None but ourselves can free our minds". These lines were taken from a speech given by Marcus Garvey in Nova Scotia during October 1937 and published in his Black Man magazine.
With Bob accompanying himself on Guitar, "Redemption Song" was unlike anything he had ever recorded: an acoustic ballad, without any hint of reggae rhythm. In message and sound it recalled Bob Dylan. Biographer Timothy White called it an 'acoustic spiritual' and another biographer, Stephen Davis, pointed out the song was a 'total departure', a deeply personal verse sung to the bright-sounding acoustic strumming of Bob's Ovation Adamas guitar.
Bob Marley - "Redemption Song" (in studio with the Wailers)
Bob Marley
Bono is quoted in the James Henke book Marley Legend: An Illustrated History Of Bob Marley as saying, “I carried Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’ to every meeting I had with a politician, prime minister, or president. It was for me a prophetic utterance, or as Bob would say, ‘the small ax that could fell the big tree.’”
Link / Review:
wikipedia: Redemption Songsongfacts: Redemption Song by Bob Marley & The Wailers
americansongwritter: Behind The Song: Bob Marley, "Redemption Song"
rollingstone: 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
