Victoria Rice

Blog Post 17: A Transformative Education

My selected passage is the one posted below. It is from Songs of freedom: The music of Bob

Marley as transformative education by Alan Smith. It is his analyzation of Redemption Song.

It is found under the section Songs of Justice, Freedom, and Hope. This is really helpful as his
analyzation of the song will show me new interpretations of the lyrics that will enable me to
make more and/or stronger connections. The placement of this passage also holds significance. It
is at the end of what Smith considers Marleys transformative education.
Redemption Song was the last track on the last album recorded and released before
Marley died of cancer in 1981. It may be seen as a fitting conclusion to the last recording
he produced and oversaw. It is a striking expression of his commitment to his music as a
form of transformative education. Dawes says, Redemption Song would confirm
Marleys commitment to the task of teaching and leading his people out of a world
marked by oppression and hopelessness and into a world of survival. (Dawes 2002,
311) The song begins with a direct reference to the Middle Passage and the slave trade
that helped form Jamaicas African heritage: Old Pirates, yes, they rob I./ Sold I to the
merchant ships / minutes after they took I from the bottomless pit./ But my hand was
made strong by the hand of the Almighty./ We forward in this generation triumphantly.
But in the second verse, he shifts from the physical degradation of slavery in the 17th
and 18th centuries to talk about the mental slavery that continues to oppress long after
slavery has been officially abandoned. It is the various forms of mental slavery that are
doing a similar degree of damage on the collective and individual psyches of Rastas and
others who suffer under oppression and hopelessness: Emancipate yourselves from
mental slavery,/ None but ourselves can free our minds. It becomes the responsibility of
those continue to suffer this emotional captivity to begin to take the steps necessary to
accomplish their own liberation. Thus, the chorus says, Wont you help to sing these
songs of freedom? Cause all I ever had, Redemption Songs/ Redemption Songs.
McCann and Hawke claim Redemption Song is perhaps Marley distilled to his
essencethe spiritual side at least.casting aside fears of mans vain and warlike
science for a belief in a greater power, no more elegant appeal on behalf of any religious
belief was ever constructed. (McCann and Hawke 2004, 98)
The background information given about this song is helpful in the interpretation of it. It will allow
me to make a more in depth analysis of these lyrics in relation to Wabanaki Blues. He makes an
interesting point as he interprets the line how Marley shifts from speaking about the physical
degradation of slavery to a mental one that does a similar degree of damage on the collective
and individual psyches of Rastas and others who suffer under oppression and hopelessness.
This is a different perspective on the lyrics than the one I had been taking, as I saw the lines
where physical slavery was depicted as a metaphor. This supports the argument of the
importance of background information. The quote at the end of this passage leads me to read
deeper into the song as it says that this song was Marley bearing his spirituality.