Bob Marley and The Wailers’ best songs, ranked
Bob Marley and The Wailers’ best songs, ranked
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To celebrate what would have been Bob Marley’s 80th birthday on Thursday, the legend’s reggae music is being remembered by original fans and a new generation this week. The Jamaican great died all too soon in 1981 at the age of just 36, having recorded 13 inspirational albums and lived a life fuller than most. To celebrate Marley, and wish him a happy birthday in spirit, here are our favourite 10 songs by him and his band The Wailers.
Early into his all-conquering decade, Marley pays homage to his Kingston neighbourhood on this standalone single which would be a mainstay in his set for his whole career. A product from the London sessions that made up his tenth album, Kaya, Sun is Shining is a polished and perfected version of his 1971 original. The opening track to Exodus was not a single but an enduring classic for its slow progressive melody and lyrics harking back to a more innocent time.
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Released after Marley’s death and included on his Confrontation album, Buffalo Soldier has the cleanest of production and singalong – “woe! yoe! yo!” – to make it the most radio-friendly of black-resistance anthems. Co-written with Curtis Mayfield, One Love / People Getting Ready has a simple enduring quality to make it as frequently played as ever after almost 50 years. Marley should be remembered as much for his protest songs as his easier listening odes to life, which makes Get Up, Stand Up an essential piece of his canon.
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A triumphant, brassy album track on Kaya, Misty Morning is fitting for Marley’s return to Jamaica after his mid-Seventies exile to London. One of the final songs recorded in Marley’s lifetime, Redemption Song is an acoustic triumph of vision and lyrics as well as a fitting closer to his Uprising album. Instead of the three-minute single released from his Natty Dread album, it’s this slowed down seven-minute epic recorded at London’s Lyceum Theatre in 1975 that is the more popular version and the one included on his greatest hits album, Legend.
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