I’m kicking off my weekend with my favorite Bob Marley tune “So Much Trouble In The World.”  This track from the ‘Survival’ album was remastered by audio engineer Barry Diament and is, in my opinion, the very best version available.  Seems like a very simple song on the surface, but it does have some deep roots.  Marley is a lyrical genius, and I don’t use that term flippantly.  Although the title suggests doom and gloom – a world filled with trouble – the lyrics are so positive and optimistic.  Check the opening verse:

“Bless my eyes this morning,
Jah sun is on the rise once again,
The way earthly thin’s are goin’,
Anything can happen.”

My favorite verse brings the listener back to reality:

“We’ve got to face the day,
Ooh-wee, come what may,
We the street people talkin’,
Yeah, we the people strugglin’.”

As Roger Steffens so eloquently explained during his multimedia presentation while touring with the Wailers on their recent ‘Survival’  tour, Marley hearkens back to the tune “Cornerstone.”

“So you think you’ve found the solution,
But it’s just another illusion!
So before you check out this time,
Please don’t leave another cornerstone
Standing there behind!”

In the original tune, Marley sings of the cornerstone as “the stone the builder refused.”  Here he pleads once again “[p]lease don’t leave another cornerstone standing there behind!”  This “callback” to the foundation tune was something I never really picked up on until Roger pointed it out.

One of Marley’s greatest tunes, without a doubt.  Marley knew that this song would always be relevant because he saw the world for what it was – a Babylonian prison where every man must do his time until we are released to live with the Almighty.

Kymani Marley does an amazing performance of this tune.

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