Bob Marley and Rastafarianism
“If God hadn’t given me a song to sing, I wouldn’t have a song to sing.” Rastafarianism is a religion that started in Jamaica around the 1930s and bases its doctrines on selections from the Bible naming the late emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie( Ras Tafari) a messiah. The Rastafarians longed to be set free from the poverty that was a consequence of slavery and from the corrupt government in Jamaica. Although they used the Bible, it was for the most part only some of the sections that were used, others were not believed in. It was the story about Israel and the poetry from the psalms that Rastafarians could identify with. Like the Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt, longed to be set free and to be brought to the promised land, early Rastafarians believed that Selassie would bring a ship from Jamaica to Ethiopia, the promised land, where they would be free.
It was not until Bob Marley took Rastafarianism and put it into music that it was known around the world. Bob Marley was highly influenced by this religion and was often seen carrying a bible, reading the psalms. Music had always been important for rastas and in rasta services they would play on rattles, tambourines, saxophones and a rumba box. And in religious cults or Baptist meetings there was always drumming and chanting. “Norman Grant, vocalist and drummer for the Twinkle Brothers, a Jamaican based reggae band, recalls his own Baptist childhood. “You chapped and stamped your feet and you really got into it,” he says, “people even got into the Spirit. They would fall down in a trance and start to roll on the ground.”” Bob Marley took this and mixed it with African religion. He was used to growing up to an everyday life that consisted of ghosts, omens, demons, spirits, prophecies and dreams. For Rastafarians music and ganja are the essential roles in Rastafarianism and to tune into a higher presence. Bob Marley was not an exception to that. He was a medicine man and swore to ganja as a healing to all nations and that it brought people together and made them think alike. Ganja is an herb from India used for medicine and smoking and Rastafarians took scriptures from different parts of the bible, out of context, to support their belief in it ““When you smoke you meditate”, Bob Marley Told a Journalist”. Bob Marley wrote several hits and among them was one called Exodus. Here is some of the lyrics from the song:
Men and people will fight ya down (Tell me why?)
when ya see Jah light
Let me tell you, if you're not wrong (Then why?)
ev'rything is alright
So we gonna walk, alright, through the roads of creation
We're the generation (Tell me why)
trod through great tribulation
Exodus, movement of Jah people
Exodus, movement of Jah people
Open your eyes and look within
Are you satisfied with the life you're living?
We know where we're going; we know where we're from
We're leaving Babylon, we're going to our fatherland
Exodus, movement of Jah people
(Movement of Jah people)
Send us another Brother Moses gonna cross the Red Sea
(Movement of Jah people)
Send us another Brother Moses gonna cross the Red Sea
Jah come to break down 'pression, rule equality
Wipe away transgression, set the captives free
This song is inspired by the second book in the Bible, Exodus, and the telling of Israel coming out of Egypt with Moses as their leader. They were held slaves in Egypt until Moses came along and got the job to lead them out of Egypt to the Promised Land, the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and parted the red sea along the way. When it says send us another brother Moses, it’s like a prayer to the rasta’s messiah to bring them to their promised land, Ethiopia. It’s a song about being captivated where you are (slavery, poverty) and not being happy about it, and in need of rescuing. Like the slaves came from Africa and in this song are asking to go back. Babylon is from the book of Revelation, the last book of the bible that Rastafarians where also highly fascinated by, and from the Old Testament, also a place where Israelites came out of and went back to the promised land. Jah is a name for God, used as well in the Bible. It’s either short for Jahweh or Jehovah which basically means God.
But with Bob Marley’s death Rastafarianism died a little as well, it was not the same after he died, because he played such a big part in it.
The Civil Rights Movement and Joan Baez
“A new grass roots civil rights movement emerged in 1960 when a wave of sit-ins by young blacks challenged segregation across the South.” It all started with four black youngsters from North Carolina sitting down in a white only area of a Woolworths department store lunch counter. The young men kept sitting even though they did not get served and several others joined in them in different parts of the country, even young whites from the north joined in as well. Things were starting to stir among the blacks in America. With the freedom riders and organisations like NAACP(The National Association for the advancement of Coloured People and SCLC(Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the election of George Wallace, who strongly supported segregation, as governor of Alabama, the struggle over civil rights intensified.
In August, 1963, Martin Luther King led a march on Washington with over 200.000 followers and had his famous “I have a dream” speech. It was the largest gathering Washington had ever seen. And there where several white folk artists supporting Martin Luther King on this campaign, like for instance Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary and Pete Seeger. And as in religion, music became important in the civil rights movement in that it created a sense of unity and it was about singing together joining in on songs like “we shall overcome” that became the official anthem for the movement. 13“I say to you, today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed-we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Martin Luther’s dream is well on its way to become true.
That same day that Martin Luther King gave this astonishing speech the crowd could hear the singing voice of a stunning soprano, singing an African American traditional song called “Freedom”. It was a song formerly sung by the slaves, dreaming of becoming free from their bonds:
OH, FREEDOM
Oh, freedom, Oh, freedom
Oh freedom over me.
And before I'd be a slave
I'd be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free.
No more moanin' etc.
No more weepin' etc.
No more shootin' etc.
There'll be singing etc.
The young woman who sang that song was Joan Baez. ”Inspired by her experiences as a child travelling the world, Joan's music became almost inseparable from the peace and civil rights movements that were reaching their peaks at that time.” Joan had a Scottish, English and Mexican heritage and because she had a father who was a physicist, the family moved allot in the US and to Europe and the Middle East. Because of her Mexican heritage she was a subject to some racial discrimination growing up and for this reason, she became very active early in her career promoting civil rights and non-violence. It even came as far as being arrested sometimes for her protests. She would sing everywhere about her beliefs many times with Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger and she was strong opinionated and not afraid to speak up or make a stir. But although she was confident in speaking, it was the music that people wanted to hear from her. And she was glad to give it. One other song that she released on her album written by Richard Farina was “Birmingham Sunday.” It gives an account of an incident in 1963 that took place in a church in Birmingham, Alabama where four little girls were killed by a bomb set off in the church.
Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun,
And Addie Mae Collins, her number was one.
At an old Baptist church there was no need to run.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,
The clouds they were grey and the autumn winds blew,
And Denise McNair brought the number to two.
The falcon of death was a creature they knew,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,
The church it was crowded, but no one could see
That Cynthia Wesley's dark number was three.
Her prayers and her feelings would shame you and me.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
Young Carol Robertson entered the door
And the number her killers had given was four.
She asked for a blessing but asked for no more,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground.
And people all over the earth turned around.
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
The men in the forest they once asked of me,
How many black berries grew in the Blue Sea.
And I asked them right back with a tear in my eye.
How many dark ships in the forest?
The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone.
And I can't do much more than to sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
And the choirs keep singing of Freedom.
What an incredible vivid account of a horrible crime committed against human beings. To be able to have so much courage in a time like that where people got killed for wanting a change, shows what an amazing woman Joan Baez was.
Her life’s work was reflected in her music and her career started blooming in the 60s right at the heat of the civil rights movement. Artists draw from and reflect on situations around them and Joan Baez did exactly that as well. “In 1964, she withheld 60% of her income tax from the IRS to protest miltary spending, and participated in the birth of the Free Speech movement at UC Berkeley. A year later she co-founded the Institute For The Study of Nonviolence near her home in Carmel Valley. As the war in Vietnam escalated in the late '60s and early '70s, she traveled to Hanoi with the U.S.-based Liaison Committee and helped establish Amnesty International on the West Coast.
Drugs and The Psychedelic Movement
The psychedelic movement was fundamentally a movement based on the philosophy that personal transformation leads to social transformation. The revolution starts from within, and LSD was the tool for this personal revolution. LSD was first synthesized by Albert Hofman in 1938 but not really used until the 60s. Suddenly everyone started taking it and it completely changed the music that artists were making. The genre called psychedelic rock started happening. Psychedelic rock was mixing, rock, reggae and other diverse elements together with drugs. “If you are serious about your religion, if you want to commit yourself to the spiritual quest, you must learn how to use psychochemicals. Drugs are the religion of the twenty first century. Pursuing the religious life today without using psychedelic drugs is like studying astronomy with the naked eye.” Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor of psychotherapy, told this to a group of Lutheran psychologists in Philadelfia at a lecture. Clearly we see here how important drugs became in the sixties and really how little people knew about the consequences. Treating a drug as the ultimate source for a religious life sounds absolutely absurd to someone who maybe would hear that today, but Leary was completely and utterly convinced of this and, needless to say, many others with him. Soon almost all Rock n’Roll musicians where high and going on trips writing songs about it and so one. It affected everything from disserted sounds to blurred album photographs. Old song writing rules became irrelevant for those who had tried LSD and instead it became about writing about the experience one had when high on the drug. One good example is John Lennon’s “I am the Walrus”:
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly.
I'm crying.
Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come.
Corporation tee-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday.
Man, you been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long.
I am the eggman (woo), they are the eggmen (woo), I am the walrus,
Coo coo, kachoo.
Mister City P'liceman sitting
Pretty little policemen in a row.
See how they fly like Lucy in the Sky, see how they run.
I'm crying.
I'm cry, I'm crying, I'm cry, I'm crying.
Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye.
Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess,
Boy, you been a naughty girl and you let your knickers down. Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun.
If the sun don't come, you get a tan from
Standing in the English rain.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the walrus,
Coo coo kachoo ka coo coo kachoo.
Expert texpert choking smokers,
Don't you think the joker laughs at you? (ho ho ho, he he he, ha ha ha)
See how they smile like pigs in a sty, see how they snide.
I'm crying.
Semolina Pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower.
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna.
Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe
This song probably doesn’t have a specific meaning and there is really no need to go in and dig deep to see the meaning of it. The Beatles didn’t take themselves too seriously, so this is probably one song that is about anything and everything.
The acid trip experience started love festivals and the answer to everything started to be love. People started calling it flower power and a childlike behaviour was a part of it. In 1967 Paul McCartney, said: “The need today is for people to come to their senses and my point is that LSD can help them. We all know what we would like to see in the world today-peace. We want to be able to get on with each other. I believe the drug could heal the world… I now believe the answer to everything is love.”
Other artists in the Psychedelic movement were The Grateful Dead, The Doors, 13th Floor Elevators and Jefferson Airplane. With Airplane’s song “White Rabbit” they gave a tribute to the drug and the encouraged people to “feed your head.”
Short Conclusion
In this assignment we have definetly seen that historical and social issues have affected the artists that have gone before us and maybe it is even possible to conclude that one can not completely distance oneself from ones upbringing and all the aspects of life and society that have affected an artist in their young life stays with them and paints a picture inside that will then be transcribed down to music. We have seen how black church music inspired Ray Charles to virtually start a new genre called soul, mixing the church music with blues and taking it to a wider audience. And Bob Marley who had grown up with rastafarianism took his belief with him everywhere he went and wrote music inspired by it. Joan Baez who got inspired to speak up about human rights and peace when the civil rights movements escalated, the historical things that happened fired up inside of her an even bigger passion for protest against injustice and singing about the happenings around her. And how drugs can turn music around and suddenly take an artist to a different level of songwriting and behaving. All these people and many others with them used their senses to channelize the emotions and happenings around them into their music. They were affected and inspired by Social and Historical happenings.
Bibliography List
About. [Internet], Folk Music. Available from:
[Accessed 29th May]
About. [Internet], Women’s History. Available from:
[Accessed 29th May]
Johnstone, N. (1999) Melody Maker, History of 20th Century Popular Music. Bloomsbury Publishing
Levine, P., Papasotiriou, H. (2005) America Since 1945. Palgrave Macmillan.
Notes from class
Thomson, E., Gutman, D. (2001) The Dylan Companion. Da Capo Press
Turner, S. (1995) Hungry For Heaven. InterVarsity Press
http://folkmusic.about.com/od/artistsaz/p/JoanBaez.htm
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_joan_baez.htm
