Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Wednesday June 2

Until I bought Catch A Fire, similar to Pink Floyd, I dismissed Bob Marley as music for stoners. Which, like Pink Floyd, is not entirely inaccurate. All the songs they used to play on Live 105 when I was in high school were the feel-good stoner party anthems you find on the “best of”.

This album totally turned me around. I bought it used, quite cheaply, because I remembered hearing tape of vintage Paul and Linda McCartney saying that they loved it, and though I assume they were probably also stoned at the time, I respect their musical taste. The deluxe version includes 2 versions of the album – the longer, less produced, unreleased Jamaican version and the commercially released version. Both have their merits.

Critically, it showed me the best Marley songs are the challenging unpleasant songs about struggle and the travesties of history. Concrete Jungle is my favorite Marley song – a gripping picture of someone living in gritty circumstances but striving and knowing there is something better out there for him. The driving bass and guitar work only increases the appeal. Oh, the love and party songs are here – Baby We’ve Got a Date, Stir it Up, Kinky Reggae – which are catchy and fun, but then I’ll get pulled into the absolute spookiness of a song like Midnight Ravers (“I see 10,000 chariots, and they’re coming without horses. The riders they cover their face, so you could not make them out in smokey place”). Is this fantasy? History? The present? I don’t know, but it conjures up a great image.

I’ve gone on to collect other Bob albums as they’ve been remastered in deluxe versions, and they’ve only deepened my opinion that the stoner fetishism image really doesn’t give Bob the credit he’s due musically and especially lyrically.