It would be another year before Eric Clapton took his version of the song to No.1 in the US (No.9 in the UK), a game-changing hit which would transform the worldwide perception and fortunes of reggae music at a stroke. “If I am guilty I will pay,” Marley sang, but the story left little room for doubt that this was a righteous killing provoked by a history of grievous mistreatment by the lawman in question. Meanwhile, the album’s most celebrated song, “I Shot The Sheriff” was a precursor of the murderous street stories that would later come to define American gangsta rap. The melody was mournful, the tone full of anger and regret as Marley pondered his people’s predicament: “All that we got, it seems we have lost.” Powered by Aston “Family Man” Barrett’s supremely melodic bass line and brother Carlton Barrett’s one-drop drum beat, the song had a groove that hovered somewhere between a funeral march and an all-night shebeen. The album’s almost-title track “Burnin’ And Lootin'” promised a full-scale riot. Burnin’ upped the ante in all departments. Island Records supremo Chris Blackwell, who had begun his career selling records by Jamaican acts from the boot of his car to the expatriate community in Britain, knew a thing or two about this particular market and now scented something spectacular in the air.Ĭatch A Fire had not only introduced the sinuous rhythmic charms of reggae music, it had also alerted the world to the cry for justice of a poor and historically dispossessed people. Still billed only as the Wailers, and still led by the three-man vocal front line of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, the band was now moving through the gears with an increasing sense of mission.Īlthough Catch A Fire had not been a hit, the response to it among tastemakers and early adopters had been overwhelming. Less than six months after the Wailers released their first international album, Catch A Fire on 4 May, the conflagration continued with the release of Burnin’ on 19 October. It was their second to last song on the 10-song setlist that featured other tracks like "Slave Driver," "Stir It Up," and show closer "Kinky Reggae.Things moved fast in the music business of 1973. We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, Lord We know when we understand Almighty God is a living man You can fool some people sometimes But you can't fool all the people all the time So now we see the light (what you gonna do?) We gonna stand up for our rightsĪccording to our setlist.fm archives, The Wailers first performed "Get Up, Stand Up" on May 24th, 1973 at BBC's Paris Theatre in London on their Catch a Fire Tour. Most importantly though, the song tells a message of standing up against oppression. It was also inspired by his upbringing in Jamaica. "Get Up, Stand Up" was inspired by The Wailers tour in Haiti, where he was deeply moved by the poverty and lives of the Haitians. In 1973, the great Bob Marley wrote a song that fuels fire into every human rights movement we embark on to this day, and continue to find inspiration in for the BLM movement. Many are just now learning that this can only be done by being anti-racist, and to do that, there's a lot of dismantling that needs to happen, because the current system our country runs on is that of the oppressor. As Americans find themselves in the midst of another Civil Rights Movement, we've been given the important task to push for a world where Black Lives Matter.
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