Get up, stand up
| Get up, stand up | |
|---|---|
| The Wailers | |
| publication | April 1973 |
| length | 3:15 |
| Genre (s) | reggae |
| Author (s) | Bob Marley , Peter Tosh |
| Label | Tuff Gong , Island Records |
| album | Burnin ' |
| Cover version | |
| 1976 | Peter Tosh |
Get Up, Stand Up is a song composed jointly by the Jamaican reggae musicians Bob Marley and Peter Tosh , both founding members of the Wailers .
Background & origin
Bob Marley wrote the song during his stay in Haiti and reflects his impressions of the situation of the population from that time. Historically, this period of Haiti can be assigned to the Duvalier dictatorship . The song was released on the album Burnin ' (1973) with the length of just over three minutes. As a result, the song was played at every concert of the Wailers and later by Marley alone mostly towards the end of the performance. Tosh, who sings the third verse on the album version, also played Get Up, Stand Up after separating from the Wailers at his concerts. On Marley's live album Live! (1975) a live recording of the song can be found. The studio recording is in the key of C minor , but live versions of the song are in B minor throughout .
Reviews
After Peter Tosh had separated from the Wailers, he recorded a new version with slightly modified lyrics for his solo album Equal Rights (1976); this version is in the key of G minor and lasts about three and a half minutes. A live recording can be found on Tosh's live album Captured Live (1984). Live versions are also in the key of G minor. After separating from Marley, Tosh sang the song together with him in a duet in 1978 on a surprise appearance at Marley's concert in Burbank , California .
Get Up, Stand Up is also the last song Marley ever sang in a gig; so happened on September 23, 1980 at the Stanley Theater (now Benedum Center ) in Pittsburgh .
Musical & content
In verse 4, Bob Marley's lyrics read: "You can fool some people sometimes, But you can't fool all the people all the time." A similar earlier quote from Abraham Lincoln reads: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
Commercial win
The music magazine Rolling Stone listed the song in November 2004 in its list of the 500 best songs of all time at number 296.
The song was played at the worldwide Live8 concerts in July 2005 by Marley's wife Rita Marley and son Stephen Marley together with the Black Eyed Peas in Philadelphia . It is also often played at concerts for Amnesty International , for example on December 10, 1998 in Paris , sung by Peter Gabriel , Bruce Springsteen , Tracy Chapman and Youssou N'Dour .
In the 2000s, Eric Burdon used part of the song and built it into one of his versions of Tobacco Road . This is included on his live album Athens Traffic Live .
Web links
- Lyrics and description of "Get Up, Stand Up" ( Memento from November 12, 2006 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved September 22, 2016.
- Lyrics of Tosh's solo version of "Get Up, Stand Up" ( Memento from May 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved September 22, 2016.
Individual evidence
- ↑ HIFF Review: 'Bob Marley: Making of a Legend' ( Memento from July 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved September 23, 2016.
- ^ Lyrics and description of "Get Up, Stand Up" ( Memento from November 12, 2006 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved September 22, 2016.
- ^ Quote from Abraham Lincoln at "investigator.com". Retrieved September 22, 2016.
- ^ The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: Rolling Stone ( Memento June 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved November 20, 2010.