“Redemption Song” – Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer
(Words/music: Bob Marley, available on Cash Unearthed, American / Universal 2003)

I spent four years in college yet never went through a Bob Marley phase.  My instinct is to say that I got enough of it second hand, but after thinking about it for a minute I’d say that it was repeated plays of the same Marley tunes that burned me out on his music.  I could only hear “Get Up, Stand Up” and “I Shot the Sheriff” so many times before a quick upward strum on a guitar would cause me to retreat.  The positive side effect to this combination of burnout and stubbornness means that occasionally I get to make small discoveries in Marley’s cannon.  The first one, the one that made me rethink my distaste, was “Redemption Song.”  Sure, it partially has to do with the different instrumentation, but it was Marley’s careful weaving of his personal spirituality and politics of liberation that made the song speak to me.  At other moments, Marley leans heavily on one (or both) of these polarizing ideas, but on “Redemption Song” he strikes a balance where it’s easier to see the beauty of his convictions without getting caught up in the polarizing details. 

The first version of “Redemption Song” I truly loved was on Joe Strummer’s posthumous Streetcore album.  In particular, I loved all of the extra touches – the guitar flourishes, the organ chords – that accompanied Strummer’s voice.  Later on, I heard this duet version – the same instrumental track only with Strummer and Johnny Cash trading verses.  Neither man saw the release of this track (Cash Unearthed came out shortly after his death), and I’m not even sure if Cash and Strummer recorded the song together or whether Cash added his vocals afterward (if you know, I’d love to know).  All of this leads me to the most interesting bit of trivia (remember, I’m a Marley lightweight, so this didn’t seem obvious to me) that Marley wrote and recorded “Redemption Song” after his cancer diagnosis.  All three of these men sang this song near the end of their lives (granted, for three different reasons – Marley’s illness, Strummer’s sudden heart attack, and Cash’s slowly declining health), and I’d like to think that this song brought them all peace as they neared the end of their time on Earth.  If nothing else, all three – Marley’s original, Strummer’s version, and the version Cash augments – left beautiful interpretations for us to remember them fondly. 

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