Pop Song 159 'Redemption Song' Bob Marley 1980 UPRISING Album

Pop Song 159 'Redemption Song' Bob Marley 1980

For the Truckers during the moment of truth!

"Redemption Song" is a song by Jamaican singer Bob Marley. It is the final track on Bob Marley and the Wailers' twelfth album, Uprising

In 2010, the New Statesman listed it as one of the Top 20 Political Songs.

At the time he wrote the song, circa 1979, Bob Marley had been diagnosed with the cancer in his toe that took his life a couple of years later. According to Rita Marley, "...he was already secretly in a lot of pain and dealt with his own mortality, a feature that is clearly apparent in the album, particularly in this song.

The song urges listeners to "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery," because "None but ourselves can free our minds." These lines were taken from a speech given by Marcus Garvey at Menelik Hall in Sydney, Nova Scotia, during October 1937 and published in his Black Man magazine:

We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind ..