Your assist helps us to inform the story
From reproductive rights to local weather change to Large Tech, The Impartial is on the bottom when the story is growing. Whether or not it is investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our newest documentary, ‘The A Phrase’, which shines a light-weight on the American girls preventing for reproductive rights, we all know how necessary it’s to parse out the details from the messaging.
At such a crucial second in US historical past, we want reporters on the bottom. Your donation permits us to maintain sending journalists to talk to either side of the story.
The Impartial is trusted by People throughout all the political spectrum. And in contrast to many different high quality information shops, we select to not lock People out of our reporting and evaluation with paywalls. We imagine high quality journalism needs to be accessible to everybody, paid for by those that can afford it.
Your assist makes all of the distinction.
Right now, as you learn this, chances are high there may be somebody, someplace within the UK listening to “May You Be Liked” by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Very probably, they’re singing alongside to its indelible lyrics ostensibly about sticking to your weapons or on the very least bobbing their head to its disco-inflected groove. The tune, launched in 1980, is performed a mean of 15 occasions a day within the UK – amounting to a frankly mind-boggling 4 years of cumulative airplay since 2001. There are worse methods to spend your time, I suppose.
“May You Be Liked” is the reggae star’s hottest tune this facet of the pond, coming in forward of 1965’s “One Love/Folks Get Prepared” and 1997’s “Three Little Birds”; rounding out the highest 5 are “No Girl, No Cry” and “Is This Love”. Take into account additionally its place in well-liked tradition: the tune has been coated by everybody from Toto and Joe Cocker to Lauryn Hill and Sweden’s Eurovision star Loreen. It was additionally a go-to selection for gamers of the 2013 online game Simply Dance, if meaning something to you.
In some ways it makes excellent sense that “May You Be Liked” is the crowd-favourite. Immaculately composed, the tune is basic Marley, with all his lyrical logos plain to listen to: love, peace, humanity, standing up for your self. As ever, his phrases lend themselves to a type of mild steerage imparted on the listener. “Don’t allow them to change ya, oh/ And even rearrange ya,” he says, providing a slice of time-honoured, common recommendation on par with: “Don’t fear a few factor/ Trigger each little factor gonna be alright.”
There may be, after all, additionally the very fact the tune may be very, very catchy. It’s near-impossible to learn the query of its title with out instantly succumbing to its gurgling groove (“May you be lo-ahv-ed? May you be lo-ahv-ed?”). Its rollicking rhythm is there tucked away in your mind, out of thoughts however by no means out of attain – recalled in its entirety on the first signal of its popcorn-picking guitar riff and fluttering keyboards.
“May You Be Liked” stays Marley’s solely ever single to crack Billboard’s dance chart – little doubt helped by the ear sweet backing vocals equipped by Jamaican feminine trio The I-Threes. Within the liner notes to the 1992 Marley field set Songs of Freedom, “May You Be Liked” is described as “consciously recorded with a sound that will attraction to Black American radio programmers”. To that finish, in trade for agreeing to open in 1980 for the Commodores – a band on the wane in comparison with Marley – Frankie Crocker, arguably essentially the most highly effective Black radio DJ on the time, promised that his station would play “May You Be Liked” each hour on the hour for 3 months.)
The tune’s import and that means are solely amplified by the circumstances surrounding its making. Marley wrote “May You Be Liked?” on an airplane en path to the Commodore reveals, the final ever concert events he would play earlier than his loss of life from most cancers in 1981. By then, he knew he was gravely sick – and consequently, the music penned throughout that point grappled together with his mortality, if indirectly then definitely, one would suppose, subconsciously. The album on which it arrived, 1980’s Rebellion, finds Marley in a contemplative temper. Elsewhere, on “Actual State of affairs”, he meditates on the inevitability of Armageddon.
And so, whereas “May You Be Liked” sounds prefer it could possibly be a Bob Marley love ballad in the identical vein because the beautiful “Flip Your Lights Down Low” or pop-skewing “I Need To Love You”, hear shut and also you’ll discover it’s extra introspective than that, a plea to his listeners to show their gaze inwards and reckon with what they discover. “May you be beloved?” he asks within the tune’s last moments.
There may be additionally a neat full circle second, with the I-Threes quoting a verse from Marley’s first ever single “Decide Not!” launched 19 years earlier – a meditation on mortality that Marley wrote aged 16. “The highway of life is rocky; And it’s possible you’ll stumble too; So when you level your fingers, another person is judging you,” the trio of ladies sing, lifting the lyrics of his 1961 tune. The extra issues change, the extra they keep the identical, it appears, with Marley as involved as ever with questions of judgement as he approaches his deathbed.
As ever, Marley’s message right here is as common as it’s timeless (“Ay, within the darkness there should come out the sunshine”), however definitely his “peace and love” directive finds a receptive viewers within the politically divisive occasions of the twenty first century – unrealistic, although, it could be.
Take pleasure in limitless entry to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music
Enroll now for a 4 month free trial (3 months for non-Prime members)
Take pleasure in limitless entry to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music
Enroll now for a 4 month free trial (3 months for non-Prime members)
In 1978, Marley – by then, already having moved to England – returned to Kingston, Jamaica for the One Love live performance, reuniting with the unique Wailers who had gone on to solo careers. The occasion introduced collectively 16 of reggae’s greatest acts in an try to unite the nation whereas a bloody political struggle raged within the streets. In the course of his tune “Jammin’”, Marley introduced out rival get together leaders Michael Manley and Edward Seaga onstage the place the three joined fingers in a present of unity. The second represented a dream for a greater, unified future – a pipe dream, some may say however a dream nonetheless. It’s the identical optimism that’s throughout “May You Be Liked” – highly effective to think about if just for three minutes and 38 seconds.
