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Feb 12, 2024 · His songs of freedom have become universal hymns. Rolling Stone originally published our list of Marley’s 50 greatest songs in 2014. Now, we’re updating it to 100 songs, including deep...
- Tom Eames
- Turn Your Lights Down Low. Turn Your Lights Down Low (1977) - Bob Marley & The Wailers. This was the only song on side B of Exodus to not be released as a single.
- 'Stir It Up' stir it up bob marley legend. First recorded back in 1967, this was one of Bob Marley and The Wailers' first hits outside America. It wasn't a proper hit until 1972, when Johnny Nash released a cover version.
- 'Get Up Stand Up' Bob Marley - Get up, stand up 1980. Marley wrote this song with Peter Tosh while touring Haiti, after being deeply moved by its poverty and the lives of Haitians.
- 'Sun is Shining' Sun Is Shining. Although this eventually became one of the most popular Marley songs, it was actually a fairly unknown track during his lifetime.
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- Rude Boy
- Selassie Is The Chapel
- Punky Reggae Party
- Natural Mystic
- Concrete Jungle
- Could You Be Loved?
- Caution
- Johnny Was
- Smile Jamaica
- Freedom Time
The ska-era Wailers launch themselves into the 60s Jamaican vogue for singles either praising or condemning the violent Kingston “rude boy” youth cult. Tellingly, given the socio-political songs that lay ahead of him, Marley focuses on the deprived circumstances that birthed the phenomenon: “Want it want it – can’t get it, get it get it – no want i...
Selassie Is the Chapel is like nothing else Marley recorded, in effect a doo-wop song given a Rastafarian twist. It is set to a lo-fi backing consisting of noticeably out-of-tune guitar and drums, which only serves to make the Wailers’ high harmonies more powerful. It’s both faintly creepy and fabulous.
Marley was not initially convinced by punk, but eventually recognised the denizens of the Roxy as kindred spirits – “rejected by society” – and threw in his lot on the exuberant Punky ReggaeParty, which namechecks the Clash and the Damned and promises “no boring old farts will be there” at the titular event.
There’s something genuinely thrilling about the way Exodus’s opening track slowly creeps into view – it takes a full 30 seconds to fade in – and something chilling about its mood, the lyrical references to Revelation and insistence that “many more will have to suffer, many more will have to die”.
Producer Chris Blackwell might have sweetened their sound for white ears, but you could never accuse the Wailers themselves of sugaring their message. Exhibit A: Catch a Fire opener Concrete Jungle’s powerfully bleak reportage, allegedly written not about Kingston’s ghettoes, but Marley’s mid-60s stay in the US.
The Wailers were always musically open-minded – in the 60s they covered everything from Bacharach and David to the Archies’ Sugar Sugar, while 1971’s Lick Samba dabbled in Latin-American music. Could You Be Loved?, meanwhile, allied Marley’s sharp pop instinct to disco, with backing vocalists the I-Threes on particularly fine form.
Marley’s pre-Island discography can be baffling– umpteen releases, umpteen labels – but the 00s box sets Fy-ah Fy-ah, Man to Man and Grooving Kingston 12 do a good job of sorting through it, revealing gems such as Caution: an odd, tremulous lead guitar, eerie harmonies on the chorus and a winning refrain of “hit me from the top, you crazy mother-fu...
Marley’s great musical inspiration was Curtis Mayfield – the young Wailers even copied the Impressions’ poses in photos. It’s tempting to call Johnny Was his answer to Mayfield’s Freddie’s Dead: an empathic examination of an accidental death (“from a stray bullet”) that nevertheless has wider implications, the lushness of the harmonies at odds with...
Smile Jamaica was the theme song for the Kingston concert that almost got Marley killed – he was shot by gunmen two days before the gig. It’s tempting to suggest the track itself is oddly prescient: despite the title, there’s something brooding and overcast about its sound, as if Marley didn’t quite have faith in the sentiment the lyrics were suppo...
Recorded at the first Wailers session following Marley’s return to Jamaica from his mid-60s sojourn in America, Freedom Time is audibly influenced by the music he heard in the US – there’s a distinct hint of the Impressions’ civil rights anthem People Get Ready about the lyric – and a total delight: piano-led rocksteady with a beautiful descending ...
- 7 min
- Alexis Petridis
Feb 15, 2024 · As the biopic Bob Marley: One Love hits theaters, we count down the top tracks from one of music's most vital artists
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine
News about Bob Marley, One Love, music
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Feb 6, 2024 · Whether as a solo songwriter or making music with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, these 20 songs reveal exactly why Bob Marley’s music eternally lives on. Listen to the best Bob Marley songs...
Aug 1, 2017 · Bob Marley f/ Lauryn Hill "Turn Your Lights Down Low" (1999) Image via Discogs. Album: Chant Down Babylon. Label: Tuff Gong / Island. Producer: Stephen Marley. The gorgeous love song...
