War (Bob Marley song)
War (in German "War") is a song by Bob Marley and his band The Wailers . It was releasedas the ninth of ten songson the studio album Rastaman Vibration ( 1976 ).
Lyrics description
War is less structured as a classical song with stanzas and choruses than as a kind of spoken chant ; This is no coincidence, because Marley did not write the text himself, but took it from a passage from Haile Selassie's speech to the United Nations in New York on October 4, 1963 .
The text, which in Selassie's original formulation formed a single sentence, states that the African continent will know no peace until:
- the philosophy in which one race is favored over the other, will be definitively and permanently disreputed and abolished,
- the skin color is no more important than the eye color ,
- the fundamental human rights of every human being, regardless of race, will be equally guaranteed,
- the shameful and unfortunate regimes that keep the brothers in inhumane bondage in Angola , Mozambique and South Africa (representing the whole of Africa) will have been overthrown and destroyed,
- all Africans stand and speak as free people, equal in the eyes of mankind as they are in the eyes of heaven.
Until that day, the dream of lasting peace and secular citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain nothing but a fleeting illusion to be striven for but never to be achieved. Finally, there is the cautionary call that Africans will fight because it is necessary and they are sure of their victory because they are convinced of the triumph of good over evil.
Marley added a "war" between each statement, such as "me say: war", "it is a war", and so on. Although the text is not by Marley himself, it is considered to be one of the most powerful and poetic compositions of Marley, the words of Selassie, who was worshiped by the devout Rastafarian Marley as the returned Messiah (Jehovah, " Jah Rastafari"), in typical reggae -Style set to music.
Translation of the lyrics
Until the ideology that
emphasizes one race
and humiliates the other is
finally and permanently damned
and abolished, there
will be war everywhere, I say war!
Until there are no longer any
first or second class citizens
in any nation,
until the color of a person's skin is
no more important
than the color of his eyes,
I say war!
Until basic human rights
are guaranteed to everyone equally
without looking at race,
there will be war.
Until that day,
the dream of lasting peace,
world citizenship, domination of international decency will
remain an ephemeral illusion that will
be pursued but never achieved.
Now there is war everywhere, war!
And until the shameful and miserable regimes that
keep
our brothers in inhumane bondage in Angola,
Mozambique and South Africa
are
overthrown and utterly destroyed,
Hey, there is war everywhere, I say war!
War in the east, war in the west,
war up in the north, war down in the south,
war! War! Rumors of war
And until the day
Africa will know no peace.
We Africans will fight,
we find this inevitable,
and we know:
we will win
because we trust in victory,
the good over the bad,
the good over the bad,
the good over the bad,
the good over the bad,
the Good on bad,
good on bad.
Music description
Musically speaking, the song is very simple, with bars alternating between B flat minor and A flat major chords, and every now and then there is an increase when Marley sings the word "War". In the background the whole song can be heard the "War" call of the background singers ( The I-Threes ) , which is set at the beginning of each bar . The electric bass doesn't consistently only play two chords alternately, but sometimes plays some of its own improvisations; the same goes for the wind instruments. Nevertheless, the music does not lose its impact as it forms an excellent underpinning of the text in the foreground.
Statistical data
War is one of the well-known songs by Marley. The song was an integral part of concerts on tours from 1976 to 1980 . A live recording was released on the live album Babylon By Bus ( 1978 ). The song was never played individually, with the exception of a few concerts in Jamaica and the One Love Peace Concert in 1978, but mostly followed by the song No More Trouble , which seamlessly follows War both musically and in terms of content . On the tour in 1976 and occasionally in the following years, Get Up, Stand Up was also added, which then resulted in a medley of those three songs.
The album version is in the key of B flat minor ; the song was always played in B minor during live performances . The duration of the album version is three and a half minutes. Live versions vary in length from three and a half to eight minutes.
Other versions
An additional alternative version exists in which Marley adds a few more words from Selassie's speech at the end; however, it was never sung live. The key is also B flat minor and the duration is a little over four minutes.
Sepultura covered the song in 1996 when recording the album Roots , but it only appeared on the compilation Blood Rooted and a later label bonus release.
Sinéad O'Connor covered the piece on her roots-reggae album Throw Down Your Arms, recorded in Jamaica with Jamaican musicians .
Bob's son Ziggy Marley presents a medley on his live album In Concert (released in January 2013) , in which he also reinterpreted War .
The song was often played from a piece with No More Trouble . As in the cover version of " Bono and musicians from around the world " for the CD / DVD Playing for Change .
Web links
swell
- ↑ Review by Popshot.Retrieved January 19, 2013.
- ↑ War> No more trouble - official website