Happy Birthday Bob Marley

I don't blog about music often, but Bob Marley has come to mean more to me in recent months than just what he's "famous" for (weed smokin' & music). As it says in The Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Give It Away", "Bob Marley was a poet and a prophet, Bob Marley taught me how to off it, Bob Marley walk it like he talk it".

It's the walk it like he talk it part of Marley's legacy that I'd like to focus on today. I could tell you about how I think Marley's music sounds better on vinyl even if the remastered album "Legend" has its own sort of majesty. But what could I say about Marley's music that hasn't been said already? Probably nothing.

"Good thing about music is when it hits you, you feel no pain."

 Marley's beliefs led him to refuse treatment for cancer that led to his passing in 1981. This always sort of baffled me as a teenager, but now in my 30's I've talked to a few real "rastamen" since and I understand for someone who lives their life to the principles of the Rastafari movement why it was the only decision.

Note I didn't call it "Rastafarianism". It's not a religion. It's a movement and an ideology.

“Life and Jah are one in the same. Jah is the gift of existence. I am in some way eternal, I will never be duplicated. The singularity of every man and woman is Jah's gift. What we struggle to make of it is our sole gift to Jah. The process of what that struggle becomes, in time, the Truth."

I could list all the things that Bob Marley said, but he's rather quoteable. Most of his quotes are about love. Marley was quite a romantic. He thought love was pretty much the cure for everything. He didn't mind imperfection or a little pain either. 

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” 

My favourite though is one to live by. Really.

"Love the life you live. Live the life you love."

RIP. Poet. Prophet. Legend.