Songfacts®:

• Ziggy Marley is Bob Marley's oldest son, and the Melody Makers were the band Bob put together with Ziggy and three of his other children: Cedella, Sharon and Stephen. Even though Cedella and Sharon were older, Ziggy was anointed the leader. He was just 11 when they released their first single, "Children Playing In The Streets," in 1979. The song was written by Bob and also credited to his wife Rita. Bob wrote it in 1975 but held on to it until the kids were old enough to record it.
• The title seems idyllic, conjuring images of carefree kids riding bikes or playing stickball in the streets, but the song is very bleak: these streets are filled with rubbish and hit-and-run drivers.
  
  The setting is the slums of Kingston, Jamaica, where Bob Marley grew up. Many of his songs explore the poverty, violence, and hardship he endured growing up there, most notably "Trenchtown Rock." In "Children Playing In The Streets" we hear that conditions haven't changed a generation later.
• The United Nations proclaimed 1979 as the International Year of the Child. Royalties from the "Children Playing In The Streets" single were pledged to the UN to support their efforts to help children that year.
• The song got some attention in Jamaica but not much elsewhere. When it was released in 1979, Bob Marley was already ailing from the cancer that claimed his life in 1981. Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers carried on, but their first album, Play The Game Right (which includes "Children Playing In The Streets"), wasn't released until 1985. It didn't get much love outside Jamaica, and neither did their next one, Hey World! in 1986, but their 1988 album Conscious Party was a winner. That one includes their hit "Tomorrow People."