Bob Marley – Exodus Lyrical Reviewed
From Despair To Hope From Darkness To Light
Exodus was the 1977 album that turned Bob Marley into a global phenomenon spawning four top 10 hits and the world's first reggae superstar.
In 1998, Time Magazine poll to mark the turn of the century, voted Bob Marley and The Wailers' Exodus Album of The Century.
But, behind the sunshine jollity of "One Love" and "Three Little Birds" lay a dark tale of assassination attempts, "politricks" punk rock and wounded exile….
This is an album wrenchingly birthed in blood and fire, amid events as apocalyptic as any Rasta revelation, and if happiness itself is an act of resistance, as political writer Mariane Pearl says, then Bob's cheery melodies were like a bomb. He wrote them knowing his life was at greater risk than before…and its very existence was/is a positive triumph in the primal struggle between good and evil.
Exodus is a catharsis, a balance of militancy and compassion a release from traumatic experiences that inspired it.
The Lyrical Power of Exodus
There are many reasons why Exodus is so beloved, with the sound of Marley and his band delicately recalibrating their groove, determined to reach new ears.
Bob's songs are often surrounded by proverbs, aphorisms and sayings of every Jamaican speech, together with biblical quotations, provide his metaphors and allusions. But, Marley's lyrics cannot be read without being heard. The ways he uses his voice provide clues to his meaning and then locate the thematic thread in songs about faith, betrayal, persecution, defiance, resistance, recuperation, love and hope.
They can be regarded as well as a sequence that constitutes a movement from darkness to light. An implacable belief of Marley Rastafarian faith.
The album opens with the brooding melancholy of Natural Mystic, a meditation on life's contradictions and the intractability of their resolution. The mood is one of despondency in the face of a cycle of suffering: " Many more will have to suffer/many more will have to die." The fatalism of these lines is tempered by faith. The persona of the song declares that his statement of gloom cannot be explained – "don't ask me why" – but immediately gives an explanation: "There's a natural mystic blowing though the air."
This simple statement of belief when confronted with the perplexities of life's trials is followed by So Much To Say, the first song on the album that speaks directly to the assassination attempt and speculation about its cause. His theme here is betrayal and persecution as Jamaican national heroes Marcus Garvey and Paul Bogle as well as Jesus Christ are invoked.
Guiltiness, written before the assassination attempt, reads like a comment on the crime. A bitter song of vengeance, it is a visceral indictment of "the big fish". Marley takes on a prophetic voice as he cries "woe to the downpresser" whose lot "will be the bread of sorrow".
With its portentous bass line, The Heathen is a powerful yet simple call to arms: "Rise up fallen fighters/rise and take your stance again/tis who fights and runway/live to fight another day". His own need for a boost in morale becomes a collective stance of defiance addressed to "fallen fighters" and the repetition of the one-line chorus – "De heathen back dey/pon the wall" – gives the song kinda hypnotic sense of dread.
Exodus, the title track, signals a shift in mood from somber musing to something more upbeat, with Marley delighting in the rightness of his cause, the righteousness of his vision of redemption, underpinned by the Garvey's project of repatriation. Celebrating the Rastafarian movement of like-minded souls who have "trod though great tribulation" and "seen Jha light", Exodus is a song of faith, yet it speaks to the sense of alienation that comes with the postmodern experience of mass migration and global diasporas.
With Jammin' comes the exhilaration Marley must have felt having escaped death and the demons that followed his traumatic experience. Sexual connotation aside, Jammin' is employed here as a metaphor of togetherness and unity: "No bullets can stop us now/we wont beg nor we won't blow/neither can be bought or sold", an experience of faith born of experience.
Waiting In Vain and Turn Your Lights Down Low are the recuperative songs of seduction. Waiting In Vain, with its invigorating powerful bass line is an all-time favorite of mine.
The chorus line – "I don't wanna wait in vain for your love" – is both plea and veiled threat, the humility of "I know that I'm down on your line" contrasted by "I know how to do my thing".
Three Little Birds is an infectious message of reassurance touching a universal chord.
Exodus ends with One Love, whose plea for brotherly and sisterly love and a restatement of faith is an apt ending to the album.
Marley's lyrical genius lies in his ability to translate the personal into the political, the private into the public, the particular into the universal and Exodus is an ample evidence of this.
From Despair To Hope From Darkness To Light
Exodus was the 1977 album that turned Bob Marley into a global phenomenon spawning four top 10 hits and the world's first reggae superstar.
In 1998, Time Magazine poll to mark the turn of the century, voted Bob Marley and The Wailers' Exodus Album of The Century.
But, behind the sunshine jollity of "One Love" and "Three Little Birds" lay a dark tale of assassination attempts, "politricks" punk rock and wounded exile….
This is an album wrenchingly birthed in blood and fire, amid events as apocalyptic as any Rasta revelation, and if happiness itself is an act of resistance, as political writer Mariane Pearl says, then Bob's cheery melodies were like a bomb. He wrote them knowing his life was at greater risk than before…and its very existence was/is a positive triumph in the primal struggle between good and evil.
Exodus is a catharsis, a balance of militancy and compassion a release from traumatic experiences that inspired it.
The Lyrical Power of Exodus
There are many reasons why Exodus is so beloved, with the sound of Marley and his band delicately recalibrating their groove, determined to reach new ears.
Bob's songs are often surrounded by proverbs, aphorisms and sayings of every Jamaican speech, together with biblical quotations, provide his metaphors and allusions. But, Marley's lyrics cannot be read without being heard. The ways he uses his voice provide clues to his meaning and then locate the thematic thread in songs about faith, betrayal, persecution, defiance, resistance, recuperation, love and hope.
They can be regarded as well as a sequence that constitutes a movement from darkness to light. An implacable belief of Marley Rastafarian faith.
The album opens with the brooding melancholy of Natural Mystic, a meditation on life's contradictions and the intractability of their resolution. The mood is one of despondency in the face of a cycle of suffering: " Many more will have to suffer/many more will have to die." The fatalism of these lines is tempered by faith. The persona of the song declares that his statement of gloom cannot be explained – "don't ask me why" – but immediately gives an explanation: "There's a natural mystic blowing though the air."
This simple statement of belief when confronted with the perplexities of life's trials is followed by So Much To Say, the first song on the album that speaks directly to the assassination attempt and speculation about its cause. His theme here is betrayal and persecution as Jamaican national heroes Marcus Garvey and Paul Bogle as well as Jesus Christ are invoked.
Guiltiness, written before the assassination attempt, reads like a comment on the crime. A bitter song of vengeance, it is a visceral indictment of "the big fish". Marley takes on a prophetic voice as he cries "woe to the downpresser" whose lot "will be the bread of sorrow".
With its portentous bass line, The Heathen is a powerful yet simple call to arms: "Rise up fallen fighters/rise and take your stance again/tis who fights and runway/live to fight another day". His own need for a boost in morale becomes a collective stance of defiance addressed to "fallen fighters" and the repetition of the one-line chorus – "De heathen back dey/pon the wall" – gives the song kinda hypnotic sense of dread.
Exodus, the title track, signals a shift in mood from somber musing to something more upbeat, with Marley delighting in the rightness of his cause, the righteousness of his vision of redemption, underpinned by the Garvey's project of repatriation. Celebrating the Rastafarian movement of like-minded souls who have "trod though great tribulation" and "seen Jha light", Exodus is a song of faith, yet it speaks to the sense of alienation that comes with the postmodern experience of mass migration and global diasporas.
With Jammin' comes the exhilaration Marley must have felt having escaped death and the demons that followed his traumatic experience. Sexual connotation aside, Jammin' is employed here as a metaphor of togetherness and unity: "No bullets can stop us now/we wont beg nor we won't blow/neither can be bought or sold", an experience of faith born of experience.
Waiting In Vain and Turn Your Lights Down Low are the recuperative songs of seduction. Waiting In Vain, with its invigorating powerful bass line is an all-time favorite of mine.
The chorus line – "I don't wanna wait in vain for your love" – is both plea and veiled threat, the humility of "I know that I'm down on your line" contrasted by "I know how to do my thing".
Three Little Birds is an infectious message of reassurance touching a universal chord.
Exodus ends with One Love, whose plea for brotherly and sisterly love and a restatement of faith is an apt ending to the album.
Marley's lyrical genius lies in his ability to translate the personal into the political, the private into the public, the particular into the universal and Exodus is an ample evidence of this.