Analyzing Bob Marley's Redemption Song

Joan Baez was a white singer that sang “oh freedom”. She ended up singing it at Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech. In the meaningful slow song Joan Baez expressed her wanting for equality and freedom.

While work songs dealt only with their daily life, spirituals were inspired by the message of Jesus Christ and his Good News (Gospel) of the Bible, “You can be saved”. They are different from hymns and psalms, because they were a way of sharing the hard condition of being a slave. Many slaves in town and in plantations tried to run to a “free country”, that they called “my home” or “Sweet Canaan, the Promised Land”. This country was on the Northern side of Ohio River, that they called “Jordan”. Some negro spirituals refer to the Underground Railroad, an organization for helping slaves to run away.

audience of the horrific conditions under which slave women endure, and which they have never

In the time period of slavery, many famous slave songs were produced, and most of the slave owners and others found their singing as a form of joy. In reality, singing was the slave’s form of sadness, and emotion. Slaves got through the day by singing about their hardships and troubles. Fredrick Douglass in the quote above explains that through all of his hardships, he got through it with his “sorrow songs” to pacify him and his fellow slaves to be able to complete their

The resistance continued when they were put on ships for Jamaica and America. The Africans were forced from their homes, families, and forced to live a life without freedom. They continued to fight after their arrival. The song Buffalo soldier helps many learn the way history truly happened. Jamaicans are still affected by past injustices (Dorsey 5). The majority of this population are the descendants of African slaves, forced to leave their villages some two hundred years ago to labor on Jamaican plantations for white masters.

In these songs, one can unearth the heart’s deepest desires—desires that are so basic, so undeniably human, that they cannot help but underscore the dehumanizing condition of slavery.

In some cases, the songs sung by the slaves do portray happiness, but this is very temporary. When beginning to explain the songs that he is hearing he say that the songs can

As previously discussed, we will concentrate our findings based on three communication concepts; empathy and empathic communication, self-disclosure, emotions and social influences of emotion.

slaves just to see their children cry or just for the pleasure of it. He also tells us the story of the murder

The song could help them feel like they are closer to freedom, even if that mean going to heaven or Canada.

A spiritual journey dominates these songs, but the concern for physical freedom is there as well. The most pervasive image in the spirituals is that of the chosen people for the slaves believed that they had been chosen by God just as the Israelites had. They also believed that they understood better than anyone what freedom truly meant in both a spiritual and physical sense. The Old Testament characters that the slaves referred to in their songs experienced deliverance by God. The slaves believed that the same God that had granted them spiritual freedom would someday loose the chains of slavery. The wonderful flexibility of the spirituals allowed for that double meaning of freedom. For example, Frederick Douglass claimed that the line” I am bound for Canaan” in one of the songs he frequently sang meant that he was going North, not just that he would experience the freedom of the promised land in a spiritual sense. The flexibility and multiplicity of meanings also allowed for slaves to use these sacred songs as secret communication. Some songs, such as “Steal Away to Jesus,” were used to call a secret meeting where the people could worship without the supervision of the whites. Other songs, such as “Wade in the Water” served as coded directions for runaway slaves. With the eventual emancipation of the slaves, religious music of African Americans became prominently

Douglass corrects white reader’s misconceptions about the slave’s assumed happiness by illustrating the song’s true meaning through his personal experience “within the circle.” Douglass is astounded that northerners believed they were singing songs out of happiness; he says, “I have often been astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake” (26). Douglass explains that the songs create a common experience among all slaves. Therefore, those outside the circle are ignorant to believe that their songs are out of happiness or contempt. In actuality, “slaves sing most when they are the most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears” (26). Douglass makes it clear that slaves are actually evident on a sub-conscious level of deep unhappiness. The singing is a coping mechanism, per say, to the aching hearts. The songs are not a pastime

     The power of song helped slaves through their dehumanized lives. They created unity in songs of religion and denounced the power their masters held over them. They were going to rebel in all facets of life. Slaves knew “that a happy slave is an extinct man” (p.33). The meanings of these songs can not be overstated. One who knew the importance of song was Frederick Douglass. “They told a tale of woe...they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the

When delving into the song and trying to grasp the meaning, it can be understood that the author really desires to be free and go back home to where he belongs and desires. The author or writer of the song does not like the idea of slavery, nor does he like being a slave himself, his perspective on the topic shows that he is not happy about the current situation and no one should because of how cruel slavery is. The author also uses certain rhetorical strategies, one of them being metaphors. They can be used to explain his sadness and other feelings he has about the topic of slavery. An example of this is,

One of the most prominent forms of music that was incorporated by slaves in their daily lives was religious music. Another one of the most influential forms of musical expression among the slaves were slave songs, and these were songs of sorrow and misery. Some slave songs were joyful and cheerful, but others were sorrowful but were all deeply expressive. These songs were used by slaves as a means of communicating their true feelings and emotions, due to the brutal and repressive society that they resided in.