Redemption Song

He wants something other than redemption songs.
Nobody needs to be redeemed.
He is saying everyone is human and no religion can offer what is already there.
A human heart,a human soul.

I think this version of Redemption Song is the best all though they are all great. His music will live on for ever, just last night I had a dream of Bob Marley singing. A song that he never wrote but it was so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes after the song everyone cheered. Not really sure what the dream means but I could't believe that I had dreamed this wonderful song that I had never heard before, it was so cool!!

I didn't know much about this song. I must say a found here many facts but they did not surprise me at all. Since the first time I heard redemption song I felt its spirituality. I agree it's a piece of art and I'm pleased to know it was bob's last song. This fact assures to my that he was a complete artist and not just one else. Through his lyrics and accords his talent will remain touching our souls, for us and next generations. His existence is endless. Thanks for so much you are giving us.

My first kid's middle name will be Nesta, I owe so much to Bob, he's gotten me through so much

The song is also featured as a funerary hymn in the movie The Beach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npV4YxxmcCo

Apart from all the other meanings... I also think there's a personal touch to it...
He's asking the Almighty for redemeption because he in a way gave in to materialism... like for example buying a BMW and stuff... so by this time he had the revelation that "Money is NOT life" ----> as those were his last words to Ziggy...

History lesson and life lesson. Don't live in the hurt and transgressions of the past, but don't ever forget them either.

Like many people, I also believe this song to be the best in history because of the meaning and emotion put into it by Bob Marley. The first time I heard it was in middle school and heard the No Use For A Name version. I liked it at the time. I don't know why. They totally butchered the song. It's truly inspirational that so many bands want to cover this song, but pop punk bands need to learn when to stop.

i love this bc anytime that people can post comments on the internet many people are always negative but not this time and i think that speaks so much on the legend and type of man bob marley was rip man one love

Just gotta agree with APB and Jeff on this one. I feel so privileged to have seen Bob Marley perform live at Deeside Leisure Centre in North Wales. It was a weird, spiritual experience I will never forget. I didn't know about the gig, but heard mention of it on Liverpool's Radio City. Starting in 25 minutes. Bob Marley was my hero and I was gobsmacked. Had no ticket but hot footed over there. A sell out. Only minutes to the start. I rushed over to an open trailer nearby and asked the people in there where could I get a ticket. A grand Rasta woman looked and me, smiled and said, Here you go, man. The music, the atmosphere, the performance was totally awe-inspiring. I think maybe the women in the trailer were the I Threes. This music will live forever!

Wyclef Jean recorded this on a 9/11 tribute and Michael McDonald recently sang it on his "Soul Speak" album.

although i have purchased bobs cds in the past i wouldnt consider myself a major bob marley fan, however, i am here to say that i had a dream 2 nights ago of bob marley singing redemption song - not sure what it means but just wanted to share my thoughts and dreams - i watched the video and wow it sure does strike a chord in me - thanks bob!!!!

bob marley is the man...

one love

Old pirates yes they rob I

-- And who are these pirates? In history, they were of course the European slavers, in collusion with certain traitor-princes of West Africa. In the spiritual sense, the slavers are the Spirits of the Air, the fallen watchers mentioned in the Book of Enoch; the corrupt chieftains are we ourselves, we who...

Sold I to the merchant ships

that is, to bondage to materialism and the god and goods of this world. Bound in the hulls and hells of the slave-ships of our own bodies, we are carried away from our spiritual homeland, the true Ethiopia which means "union with God", into slavery to self-centeredness. From the Unfathomable Abyss of Love, as God is called by the Elders, we are cast into the Abyss of the devil and his angels, just as (according to the Jamaican elders asked why JAH permitted slavery), the Africans who had abandoned the true faith for obeah were punished with exile from the Black Man's home, and just as the people of Jerusalem were carried off to the Babylonian captivity for their idolatry.

But, as with the exile of the Israelites to Babylon, this exile is also in a way a necessary thing, a desperate last-resort call: Awaken! Once one recognizes that one is a slave and an exile, one has started to return, and the very power of Babylon is, as in the Hebrew days, the arm of the Lord carrying His People home:

Minutes after they took I from the bottomless pit.

Hudade begins with the call to repent, to return from exile, to return to our roots which are in JAH's own love. We can not do this alone: human strength cannot bridge the gap from Adam to God. But God himself will give us strength for the effort:

My hand it was made strong by the hand of the Almighty
Forward in this generation triumphantly

What then is the effort for which we are strengthened, the struggle to which we are called? It is the Ascetic struggle:

Emancipate your selves from mental slavery
None but our selves can free our mind

--our "selves" being our true selves, the Image and Likeness of the King.

Wa - have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can change the time

However strong the "powers and principalities" of this world, the rulers of the elements (as they think themselves) may seem, they are powerless. The true King of the Elements is JAH Adonai Egziabher, and it is He who has set the times and seasons...including, as an icon, the sacred time of Hudade.

How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?

Here the perspective tilts forward to the last and most difficult week of the season, the Great Week before Fasika. As they killed the prophets, they will kill the Son also-- and "they" are "we", for the very Apostles "stood aside and looked" (if indeed they were even brave enough to do that!) But that despairing hour, when the struggle seems to have been in vain, is not the end:

Some say it's just a part of it, we got to fulfil the book.
Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom?
All I ever had-- redemption songs, these songs of freedom.

May the compassionate Saviour of the World, through the intercessions of His All-Pure Mother Maryam, of the Ascetic Fathers Takla Haymanot the Ethiopian and Gabra Manfas Qeddus, and of all the saints, guide us through the Ocean of the Fast that we may be found worthI to behold His Third-Day Resurrection!

I agree with Sammy in NY - Bob deserves more recognition than he gets. This song in particular is an awesome work of art. I am now finding a love for reggae, I never used to like it (I am a 27 year old white male from Wisconsin, what'd you expect). I have always liked Bob though, and now find myself loving Damian and other current artists. Long live reggae, long live Bob, and long live Jamaica!

The redemption song is powerful and yet very sensitive and gentle. This song is what i listen to find my spiritual piece andconnection with myself...

This is one of my two favorite songs, ever. The other is Bob Marley's "Coming In From The Cold," which opened the album that ended with "Redemption Song." Both of these songs had me in tears for days after I first heard them: They are both so powerful, yet so gentle. Bob was one of the few visionaries the world--let alone music--has ever had. I like to think that he was a reincarnation of the poet William Blake. (If you don't already know them, look up Blake's "Little Lamb," "The Tyger," "London" or just about anything else in "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience." You'll find a very similar sort of spirit and sensibility in Bob Marley's work, especially in this song, "Coming In From The Cold" and "War." P.S. I'm about as white a woman as you'll ever find, with fine reddish-blonde hair. But when I first heard Bob Marley, when I was about 20, I tried to dreadlock my hair! Thought you might get a laugh out of that. I've been told that I looked better in them than in the "punk" haircut I later got.

I heard Nesta was not buried, rather his casket is 6' above the earth?
We miss ya Bob, let's hope the whole world one day sees life the way you did.

In sixth grade, my daughter Claire had an assignment to write an essay about someone who changed the world- and she picked Bob. Of course, I had to argue with the teacher- and inform her that Bob Marley had been awarded the UN Peace Award among others. Claire began her paper with the lyrics to redemption song- proved her point, and got an A. 6 years later as she enters her senior year, she wears her " I love Bob" hoodie everywhere and when I hear her break out into song, it is usually this one. His influence will never die.

Robert Nesta Marley lives on in our hearts!

Bob marley in my mind is the greatest musician, and this song just caps a wonderfull and amazing life he had. more ppl shud be like he was. i wish i had the chance to see him live.

RIP- 2/6/45 - 5/11/81

Wow. I didn't know all that. RIP bob

this is my favorite song....at first i didn't know that it was bob's last song...don't know what to say except that i love this song & bob marley!RIP BOB M.!!!!!!!!!!

This song has been covered by Stevie Wonder and Johnny Cash.

Small correction to Daniel's comment- Bob Marley was baptized into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which had then just formally separated from the Egyptian Coptic Church after the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria approved them having another patriarch in Addis Ababa.

when i was a kid,i use to hear all bob marley's song.....then suddenly i found my self that im a revulotionary..BOB MARLEY, he open my mind..i love my self and all the people who kill me.. thanks bob..

this song always makes me want to cry.

The greatest song of all time. Period.

This actually was not the last song Bob performed. At that final Pittsburgh show in 1980, the second encore consisted of "Is This Love" and "Work".

Time will tell wat will happen good or bad

Johnny Cash did a cover on this with Joe Strummer on Cash's Unearthed III: Redemption Songs.

Played on the show "LOST" several times... fits really well, since all the charachters seem to be using their acts on the Island as a way to redeem themselves.

This song seems sad...it seems like Marley is just telling everyone what he stands for and how his vision can come to light before he dies.

I love this song so much

No Use For A Name covered this song.

A month before his death, he was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit. He wanted to spend his final days in Jamaica but he became too ill on the flight home from Germany and had to land in Miami. He passed away at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, Florida on May 11, 1981. Before his death he was baptised into the Coptic Orthodox Church. and took the name Berhane Selassie (meaning the Light of the Holy Trinity in Coptic). His funeral in Jamaica was a dignified affair with combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafarianism. He is buried in a crypt at Nine Miles, near his birthplace, with his Gibson guitar, a bud of marijuana and a Bible.

Redemption Song is everything most songs are really about. Cries for redemption. Songs of freedom. All they ever have. And Bob Marley's simple yet grand vision herein is everything therein. And nothing more.

This is quite possibly the greatest song ever written.

Joe Strummer (RIP) and the Mescalaros also did a version of Bob Marley's Redemption Song released on their album Streetcore in 2003, after his death in 2002. Both songs are equally great, and the lyrics in this song really makes you think.

Where is the Marley love? I feel as though he should be given more attention. I mean, this guy brought wonderful reggae jams and made his influence felt all around the world. This song, in particular, showed his tremendous growth as a musician. It's a shame his life was cut short. The whole world misses you, Bob!