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Bob Marley: Babylon by Bus

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Island Records
Released: 1978.10.10
Time:
 73:43
Category: Reggae
Producer(s): See Artists ...
Rating: *******... (7/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.bobmarley.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2000.07.15
Price in €: 9,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Positive Vibration (V.Ford) - 4:55
[2] Punky Reggae Party (B.Marley/N.Perry) - 5:38
[3] Exodus (B.Marley) - 7:26
[4] Stir It Up (B.Marley) - 5:11
[5] Rat Race (B.Marley) - 3:25
[6] Concrete Jungle (B.Marley) - 5:30
[7] Kinky Reggae (B.Marley) - 4:36
[8] Lively up Yourself (B.Marley) - 6:10
[9] Rebel Music [3 O'Clock Roadblock] (A.Barrett/H.Peart) - 5:02
[10] War/No More Trouble (A.Barrett/A.Cole/B.Marley) - 5:20
[11] Is This Love? (B.Marley) - 7:05
[12] Heathen (B.Marley) - 4:14
[13] Jamming (B.Marley) - 5:05

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


BOB MARLEY - Rhythm Guitar, Vocals, Producer

JUNIOR HANSON - Guitar, Producer
ALFA ANDERSON BARFIELD - Electric Guitar, Producer
ASTON BARRETT - Bass Guitar, Producer
CARLTON "Carlie" BARRETT - Drums, Producer
TYRONE DOWNIE - Keyboards, Producer
JUNIOR MURVIN - Electric Guitar, Photography, Producer
EARL LINDO - Hammnond Organ, Clavinet, Producer
ALVIN PATTERSON - Percussion, Producer

I-Threes:
MARCIA GRIFFITHS - Vocals
RITA MARLEY - Vocals
JUDY MOWATT - Vocals

CHRIS BLACKWELL - Producer
JACK HUBER - Producer
JACK NUBER - Producer
BARRY DIAMENT - Remastering
ROB FRABONI - Remastering
NEVILLE GARRICK - Art Direction, Design, Photography
LAURIE LEWIS - Photography
KATE SIMON - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


In 1978, the increasing global popularity of Marley's music was reflected by Bob Marley and The Wailers' first World Tour. With the positive reception of Live! among rock fans, it was felt that another live album would open up an even bigger audience. Capturing the magic of a Bob Marley and The Wailers live performance, Babylon By Bus features The Wailers' June 1978 show at the Pavilion in Paris and other performances across Europe.

www.bobmarley.com



Arguably the most powerful live album in reggae's history, it was recorded with The Wailers at various international stops over a three-year period and demonstrates how Marley remade his music constantly, especially in performance.

Roger Steffens, All-Music Guide



Having seen Bob Marley on the cover of seemingly every magazine in America with a cannabis giganticus planted in his mug finally puts you in mind of Robert De Niro's last words to Harvey Keitel's dealer/pimp in Taxi Driver: "Suck on this!"

Island gave Marley the big push—the only push any reggae artist really got beyond a guaranteed tax write-off—and now Marley and company are reaping the benefits of such monomaniacal zeal: Rastaman Vibration, the worst album he ever made until this one, hit the Top Twenty, and last summer's Exodus finished in Billboard's Top Hundred LPs of 1977.

My bitterness may seem misdirected, even out of proportion. It's just one man's opinion, you understand, but for my money, Toots and the Maytals, who never got promoted properly, are the real heat waves from a Stax/Volt kitchen, whereas Marley (on Island, at least) always struck me as so laid back that he seemed almost MOR. Most white fans simply didn't agree. "Toots is a very old-fashioned performer," said one, and all felt that Marley was certainly the prophet incarnate of the Rastafarian scripture: the primest cut of all. (I wonder what that would make Winston "Burning Spear" Rodney? A revisionist?)

So, after becoming addicted to Toots and the Maytals, Burning Spear, et al., I dutifully went back to my Marley records and even bought the early Trojan imports, but it was no good. There were some great songs (which he kept recutting), but the delivery just seemed pallid. Rastaman Vibration was the last straw: an LP obviously calculated to break Disco Bob into the American Kleenex radio market full force, complete with chicklet vocal backups chirping, "Posi-tive!" and an opulent, palmthatch Tarzan-like press kit that would have made serviceable shelter for Gilligan and the Captain. Exodus simply seemed schizoid, one side no better than Rastaman Vibration outtakes, and the other a Rastafarian liturgy mouthing much righteousness but falling leagues short of the corrosive militance that led ex-Wailer Peter Tosh's concurrently released Equal Rights to go so far as to mention Palestinian guerrillas admiringly. (Tosh has just been dropped by Columbia.) Marley was clearly trying to have it both ways, but broadcasting the politics of Armageddon/liberation while dishing up potential Hall and Oates covers like "Waiting in Vain" is walking a mighty shaky tightrope. On Kaya, he falls off. Guess to which side.

This is quite possibly the blandest set of reggae music I have ever heard, including all the Engelbertisms of would-be crossover crooners like John Holt. It's pleasant enough if you just let it eddy along, but nothing on the ten cuts pulls you in like the hypnotic undertow of Burning Spear's Marcus Garvey, haunts like the best from The Harder They Come soundtrack or churns up the guts and heart like Toots and the Maytals. Musically, Kaya is a succession of the most tepid reggae clichés, pristinely performed and recorded, every last bit of tourist bait (down to the wood blocks) in place just like a Martin Denny record. Marley sings in a cheerful lilt light and bouncy enough for panty-hose commercials. Four hundred years? Concrete jungles? Burning and looting? Pass the Man Tan, Irma.

In the past, though his delivery arguably lacked the force and intensity he seemed capable of, Marley always delivered concise, sometimes devastatingly understated, sometimes brilliant lyrical turns. Most of the words on Kaya apparently deal with the simple beauties of vegetable matter, the sun and other aspects of the insensate organic world, and how contented they make the singer feel. The placidity is so completely undisturbed (except in one song of love lost and the last two cuts, which really don't say anything anyway) that Marley comes off as downright smug.

Some sort of inverse racism must be involved if people can actually ascribe commitment, or even talent, to verses like: "Excuse me while I light my spliff/Oh GOD I gotta take a lift/From reality I just can't drift/That's why I am staying with this riff." Unless Marley is just heaping contempt on his ever-credulous white audience—which seems unlikely since his Jamaican fans are expected to buy this stuff, too—such lyrics place him sub-Chocolate Watchband. There's also a song about how the rain is falling and how glad he is because that'll make the dope crop grow. (Wonder if they have a Five-Year Plan?) Melanie Award: "When the morning gather the rainbow/Want you to know, I am a rainbow too." Rhyming Dictionary op. cit.: "I wanna love you, and treat you right/I wanna love you, every day and every night." Do these last lines make Bob Marley the Barry White of Montego Bay, or perhaps mean, given the assassination attempts and general war ina Babylon, that he merely wants to love the woman until the fear in him subsides? Probably the latter, considering the tall order placed in "Misty Morning": "I want you to straighten out my today.../I want you to straighten out my tomorrow." Whatever happened to Self-Determination Music? Oh well, gotta move with the times. There is one song intimating that his woman left him because she couldn't take "the pressure around me," but considering the Rastas' well-known stand on women in general and the probability of that picture of Marley toting a model around a Paris disco having run in the Kingston Daily Gleaner, one must reserve the benefit of the doubt. Who wants to make the beast with two backs with a walking target who can't keep his hands off the strange?

It has long been a theory of mine that marijuana should only be legalized for Third World peoples, since ofays in general just can't handle it, becoming either paranoid, totally withdrawn or excruciatingly cosmic. When was the last time you saw an Arab or a Thai giggling all over him-or herself about the pattern in your carpet, or heard one of them say, "If I say anything weird, let me know, 'cause I'm stoned"? Yasir Arafat to the U.N.: "I need some Korn Kurls and a Yoo Hoo before I can finish my speech. Don't any of you people ever get the munchies?" If my theory is correct, then maybe we can blame Kaya on an accident of the bloodline, Marley's father being white. Otherwise, we're just going to have to accept it: this man wants to be a superstar at all costs and will sell out his music, his people, his religion and his politics to get there. I know Jesus was betrayed by a kiss—but a toke?

LESTER BANGS - RS 266
© Copyright 2001 RollingStone.com



The second Marley live album came from 1978, and had to be pretty damned good to match the incandescence of 1975's Live. But with glorious performances on songs like "Punky Reggae Party," "Is This Love?" and "Jamming," they came close to equalling it. Maybe there wasn't quite the same amount of inspiration, but the Wailers had matured into a tight unit, with Marley as a charismatic performer, as this captured only too well. And with Marley still at the height of his writing powers, there definitely wasn't a dud song in the bunch. Not so much bus travel, as limousine listening.

Chris Nickson, Amazon.com



Das zweite Live-Album von Bob Marley erschien 1978 und mußte schon verdammt gut sein, um den Erwartungen -- die aufgrund seiner ersten Live-LP von 1975 hochgesteckt waren -- gerecht zu werden. Aber mit Glanzstücken wie "Punky Reggae Party", "Is This Love?" oder "Jamming" gelang es ihm sogar fast. Vielleicht fehlte es ein wenig an Inspiration, aber die Wailers waren zu einer festen Einheit zusammengewachsen, mit Marley als charismatischem Frontmann, der das Publikum wie kein anderer in seinen Bann zu ziehen vermochte.

Dank eines Bob Marley, der sich auf der Höhe seiner schöpferischen Kraft befand, gibt es auf dem Album keinen Song, der seine Wirkung verfehlt. Dieses Hörerlebnis ist weniger mit einer Busreise als mit der Fahrt in einer Luxuslimousine vergleichbar.

Chris Nickson, Amazon.de



Zwei Jahre vor seinem tragischen Tod zeigte der "King" noch einmal nachdrücklich und vital, wer das Reggae-Zepter in der Hand hält: Babylon By Bus macht an vielen wichtigen Etappen von Marleys Karriere Station - von Positive Vibration bis Is This Love. Ein Klassiker aber fehlt leider bei den mitreißenden Live-Erlebnissen: No Woman No Cry.

© Audio
 

 L y r i c s


Positive vibration

Live if you want to live
Rastaman vibration yeah! Positive
I and I vibration yeah! Positive
I a man iration yeah! Irie ites
Positive vibration yeah! Positive

If you get down and quarrel everyday
You're saying prayers to the devil, I say
Why not help one another on the way
Make it much easier

Say you just can't live that negative way
You know what I mean
Make way for the positive day
Cause it's a new day
New time, new feeling yeah!
Say it's a new sign
Oh what a new day

Picking up,
Are you picking up now
JAH love, JAH love protect us (repeat)

Rastaman vibration yeah! Positive
I and I vibration yeah! Positive
I a man iration yeah! Irie ites
Vibes, got to have a good vibe
Picking up,
Are you picking up now (repeat)


Punky Reggae Party

Punky punky punk
said your gonna punky punky punk

said im goin to a party
and i hope you are hearty
so please dont be naughty
for its a punky reggae party

new wave, new phrase
new wave, craze

its takes joyful sound
to make the world go round
come with your heart and soul
come and rock your bone

its a punky reggae party
and its tonight
its a punky reggae party
and its alright

what did you say?

rejected by society
treated with impunity
projected by my dignity
i search for reality

new wave, new craze
new wave, new wave, new phrase

im sayin
the Wailers will be there
the Damned, the Jam, the Clash
Maytals will be there
Dr. Feelgood too

no boring old farts, no boring old farts, no boring old farts
will be there!
no boring old farts, no boring old farts, no boring old farts
will be there!

well its a punky reggae party
and its tonite
its a punky reggae party
and its alrite

a tip from a gypsy
she said "man you gettin tipsy"
hiding from reality
in your world of hypocrisy
in your world of hypocrisy
in your world of hypocrisy
in your world of hypocrisy
in your world of hypocrisy

let me tell you
a brother, a brother, a brother, a brother
a brother, a brother
We're looking for no trouble
But if you trouble trouble
We'll give it to you double
it takes a joyful sound
to make the world go round
it takes a joyful sound
so come and rock your bone

cause its a punky reggae party
and its tonite
well its a punky reggae party
and its alrite

a tip from a gypsy
she said "man you gettin tipsy"
hiding from reality
in your world of hypocrisy
in your world of hypocrisy
hidin from reality
in your world of hypocrisy
in your world of hypocrisy

a bubble, a bubble
were looking for no trouble

new wave, new phrase
new wave, new wave, new craze


Exodus

Exodus, movement of JAH people
Exodus, movement of JAH people
men and people will fight ya down
when ya see JAH light
let me tell you if you're not wrong
everything is allright
walk, through the roads of creation
we're the generation
who trod through great tribulation

Exodus, movement of JAH people
Exodus, movement of JAH people

open your eyes and look within
are you satisfied with the life
you're living
we know where we're going
we know where we're from
we're leaving babylon
into our father's land

Exodus, movement of JAH people
Exodus, movement of JAH people
Exodus, Exodus, Exodus
Exodus, Exodus, Exodus
movement of JAH people
movement of JAH people
movement of JAH people
movement of JAH people

move, move, move, movement of JAH people

JAH come to breakdown downpression, rule equality
wipe away transgression
and set the captives free

Exodus, movement of JAH people
Exodus, movement of JAH people


Stir it up

Stir it up little darlin' stir it up
Oh yeah, yeah
Stir it up little darlin'

It's been a long long time
Since I had you on my mind
Now you are here it's so very clear
There's so much we could do
Just me and you
Come on and stir it up little darlin'

I'll push the wood, light the fire
I'll satisfy your hearts desire
I will stir it every, every minute
All you have to do, girl,
Is keep it in it

Quench me when I'm thirsty
Cool me down baby when I'm hot
Your recipe is so tasty
When you show and stir your pot


Rat race

Ah! Ya too rude
Oh what a rat race
Oh what a rat race
This is the rat race

Some a lawful, some a bastard, some a jacket
Oh what a rat race, rat race

Some a gorgan, some a hooligan, some a guine-gog
In this rat race, yeah!
Rat race
I'm singing
When the cats away
The mice will play
Political voilence fill ya city
Yea-ah!
Don't involve Rasta in your say say
Rasta don't work for no C.I.A.
Rat race, rat race, rat race
When you think is peace and safety
A sudden destruction
Collective security for surety
Yeah!

Don't forget your history
Know your destiny
In the abundance of water
The fool is thirsty
Rat race, rat race, rat race

Oh it's a disgrace to see the
Human-race in a rat race, rat race
You got the horse race
You got the dog race
You got the human-race
But this is a rat race, rat race


Concrete jungle

No sun will shine in my day today
The hich yellow moon won't come out to play
I said darkness has covered my light
And the stage my day into night
Where is the love to be found
Won't someone tell me
Cause life must be somewhere to be found
Instead of concrete jungle
Where the living is harder

Concrete jungle
Man you got to do your best
No chains around my feet
But I'm not free
I know I am bound here in captivity
yeh-I've never known the happiness
I've never known what sweet caress is
Still-I'll be always laughing like a clown
Won't somebody help me 'cause
I've got to pick myself from off the ground
In this ya concrete jungle
I said what do you got for me now
Concrete jungle ah won't you let me be now


Kinky reggae

I went downtown
I saw miss brown
She had brown sugar
All over her booga-wooga

I think I might join the fun
But I had to hit and run
See I just can't settle down
In a kinky part of town

Ride on
Don't you know I've got to oh baby ride on,
See I just can't settle down
Oh I'm a leaving town

Kinky reggae take me away
Kinky reggae, kinky reggae, kinky reggae now,
Kinky ride on, ride on baby

I went down to picadilly circus
Down there I saw marcus
He had a candy bar


Lively up yourself

You're gonna lively up yourself
And don't be no drag,
You lively up yourself cause reggae is another bag
You lively up yourself and don't say no
You're gonna lively up yourself cause I said so

(Hear what you gonna do)
You rock so you rock so like you never did before
You dip so you dip so, dip thru my door
You come so you come so oh yeah
You skank so you skank so be alive today

You're gonna lively up yourself and don't say no
You lively up yourself big daddy says so
You lively up yourself and don't be no drag
You lively up yourself cause reggae is another bag

What you got that I don't know
I'm a trying to wonder why you act so
(Hey, do you hear what the man seh?)
Lively up your woman in the morning time you'all
Keep a lively up your woman when the evening come
And take her take ya.

You rock so you rock so you dip so you dip so
You skank so you skank so and don't be no drag
You come so you come so for reggae is another bag.

Get what you got in that bag
What have you got in the other bag
You got hanging there?
What you say you got?
I don't believe you!


Rebel music (3 O'clock Roadblock)

I, rebel music
I, rebel music
Why can't we roam this open country
Oh why can't we be what we want to be
We want to be free

3 o'clock - roadblock, curfew
And I've got to throw away
Yes I've got to throw away
Yes I've got to throw away
My little herb stalk

I, rebel music
I, rebel music

Take my soul and suss me out
Check my life if I am in doubt
3 o'clock - roadblock
And hey Mr. Cop, ain't got no
(What you say down there)
Ain't got no birth certificate on me now

I, rebel music
I, rebel music
Take my soul and suss me out
Check my life if I am in doubt
3 o'clock - roadblock
And hey Mr. Cop, ain't got no
(What you say down there)
Ain't got no birth certificate on me now.


War / No more trouble

What life has taught me
I would like to share with
Those who want to learn...

Until the philosophy which hold one race
Superior and another inferior
Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war, me say war

That until there are no longer first class
And second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man's skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes
Me say war

That until the basic human rights are equally
Guaranteed to all, without regard to race
Dis a war

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion
To be persued, but never attained
Now everywhere is war, war

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique,
South Africa sub-human bondage
Have been toppled, utterly destroyed
Well, everywhere is war, me say war

War in the east, war in the west
War up north, war down south
War, war, rumours of war

And until that day, the African continent
Will not know peace, we Africans will fight
We find it necessary and we know we shall win
As we are confident in the victory

Of good over evil, good over evil, good over evil
Good over evil, good over evil, good over evil


Is this love

I wanna love you, and treat you right
I wanna love you, every day and every night
We'll be together, with a roof right over our heads
We'll share the shelter, of my single bed
We'll share the same room, JAH provide the bread

Is this love, is this love, is this love
Is this love that I am feeling (repeat)
I wanna know, wanna know, wanna know now
I got to know, got to know, got to know now
I'm willing and able
So I throw my cards on your table
I wanna love you and treat you right
I wanna love you, every day and every night
We'll be together, with a roof right over our heads
We'll share the shelter, of my single bed
We'll share the same room, JAH provide the bread

Is this love, is this love, is this love
Is this love that I am feeling (repeat)
Oh yes I know, yes I know, yes I know now (repeat)

I'm willing and able
So I throw my cards on your table
See I wanna love you, I wanna love and treat
You right, I wanna love you, every day and every night
We'll be together, with a roof right over our heads
We'll share the shelter, of my single bed
We'll share the same room, JAH provide the bread


The heathen

Rise up fallen fighters
Rise and take your stance again.
'Cause he who fight and run away
Live to fight another day.

Chorus:

As a man sow, shall he reap
And I know that talk is cheap.
So the hotter the battle
Is the sweeter the victory.

Rise up freedom fighters
Rise and take your stance again.
'Cause he who fight and run away
Live to fight another day.

Chorus


Jammin'

We're jamming
I wanna jam it with you,
We're jamming, jamming
And I hope you like jamming too

Ain't no rules, ain't no vow, we can do it anyhow
I and I will see you through,
'Cos every day we pay the price with a little sacrifice
Jamming till the jam is through.

We're jamming
To think that jamming was a thing of the past,
We're jamming, jamming
And I hope this jam is gonna last

No bullet can stop us now, we neither beg nor will we bow
Neither can be bought or sold.
We all defend the right, JAH JAH children must unite
Your life is worth much more than gold.

We're jamming, jamming
We're jamming in the name of the Lord
We're jamming, jamming
We're jamming right straight from JAH

Holy mount Zion
Holy mount Zion
JAH sitteth in Mount Zion
And rules all Creation

Yeah, we're jamming, jamming
I wanna jam it with you
We're jamming, jamming
I'm jammed, I hope you're jamming too

Jam's about my pride and truth I cannot hide
Too Keep you satisfied.
True love that now exist is the love I can't resist
So jam by my side.

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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