This is a PSA re: postpartum depression, and also a very listenable tune.
Love’s Contagious // Tarrus Riley
My newest favorite tune.
Also, Throwback Thursday.
Ziggy Marley’s Love is My Religion. The original version of this tune isn’t bad at all. But I prefer the acoustic. It turns it to gold.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had once had about Bob Marley. It was maybe two months after I first got to Grenada. I was with Bean’s father and a few of his friends, hanging out on a beach at night. It was one of those things where he’d invited people to hang out with us specifically for the purposes of showing me off. So I was making an effort to be on my best, most impressive behavior.
So, this was very early in my time in Grenada. There were a lot of things I hadn’t figured out yet. And a lot of slang and speech I didn’t understand. This particular friend of Lyndon (yes, that’s Bean’s daddy’s name) was the kind of Grenadian you might meet in a hotel or restaurant or on a cruise ship. And by that I mean that he was used to working with foreigners, and was capable of what we call, for lack of a better expression, “talking like a white person”. So I could understand him easily, which was a relief for me, because at that point there were times that, no matter how hard I tried, and especially after a few beers by both the speaker and listener, Grenadian speech sounded to me like an unfamiliar dialect of French.
Anyhoo. Lyndon’s friend asked me lots of questions and we had a long and interesting conversation. I still remember relatively clearly the part about Bob Marley. He was a little surprised to hear that I was pretty familiar with his music, and that pretty much everyone I knew owned a copy of Legend. I told him that my favorite song was Stir it Up, and that for a long time I had completely misunderstood the Lyrics of No Woman, No Cry. (No Woman, No Cry is about comforting a mother who has lost her son, but I thought it was advice. Like, stay away from women and you’ll never have to cry.)
It’s pretty amazing, when you think about it, that 12-year-old white chicks in suburban New York were down with Bob Marley. But then you think about it some more and realize that these are the same girls who appropriated The Grateful Dead for their own capricious fashion use.
But still. I expounded at length about how I thought Bob Marley had a universal message. That his words can speak to a wide variety of people in a wide variety of situations. And then – and this is where I kind of cringe – I said that Bob Marley was a prophet, kind of like Jesus. I didn’t really believe that but I knew he’d get a kick out of it, so I said it. It was the first time I did that in Grenada but not even remotely the last. And it worked. The guy looked at me in awe and proclaimed me “rootsy”, which is a huge, huge compliment, especially considering how “fresh off the boat” I was that night.
No, YOU were baked like a cupcake.
WOW. Five seconds in and I had to pick my jaw up off the ground. I could swear I’ve heard this exact mix in Grenada and I never did manage to get a copy so this is just… WOW.
I WANT TO BE LOVED, NOT FOR WHO YOU THINK I AM OR WHO YOU WANT ME TO BE. REAL LOVE. WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED.
Le sigh.
This may mean nothing to those who didn’t grow up in the Caribbean (which is, of course, 99.9% of those on Tumblr) - but those of us fortunate enough to, or those fortunate enough to immerse themselves in the heat for a period and be adopted by the islands (yeah, I’m talking to you, @piscesinpurple), likely spent many a hot, sweaty, rum-infused jam in some dark club, blocko, or house party, matching hip movements with someone who you were dating…or not.
For me, most of the songs in this old school reggae mix were popular while I was in college, at the University of the West Indies, Barbados campus - which was located 10 minutes walk from a pristine west-coast-of-Barbados beach (where mih Cave Hill bredren!) Spent many a campus party vibesin’ out to this music.
And heading home right when the religious students were heading to church, squinting at the Sunday morning West Indian sun. Good times.
