It’s 4am and I am listening to Bob Marley sing “burning and looting“ — — he asks: how many rivers do we have to cross?

And I just realized 47 years later,

he’s responding to Jimmy Cliff singing an earlier song called many Rivers to Cross.

When I was a kid, my mom brought home this album by Jimmy Cliff and that one song on it sounds so resigned and sad and Dejected.

“I got many Rivers to Cross and I can’t seem to find my way over. Wandering I am lost As I travel along the White Cliffs of Dover”

“My woman left, and she didn’t say why, well I guess I have to cry”

It is a plaintive wailing song of sadness and resignation.

And now I realize that Bob Marley was responding to that. A few years later I first heard Bob Marley sing because my grandmother brought home his album. My GRANDMOTHER was far more revolutionary than my mother.

She owned a little shop in a little Caribbean island, selling Heineken beer at night and fresh baked loaf of bread with cheese and sausage in the mornings. She even sold that cheese that comes in a huge can. I think it comes from Norway or Sweden or something. She was a hugely, entertaining shopkeeper, telling stories at night, while opening bottles of Heineken with a men sitting in the shop.

I quickly got eagerly into the music when Granny started playing Bob Marley.

Now to me, Bob Marley was far more revolutionary than Jimmy Cliff. But I understand. Jimmy Cliff may have been singing in a earlier different time, where he had to be more resigned, and not too uppity. It was like he was clearing the way for more angry, reggae singers.

Then along came Bob and The Wailers, and he threw off those kinds of inhibitions. And he flat out Stated that, “we’re gonna be burning and looting tonight”!

It’s kind of like when Morgan Freeman was “driving Miss Daisy“ and got criticized for this portrayal of a black man who had seemingly lost his dignity. But to me, At that time it was about survival. A black man had to be subservient in that time. In that area of the country.

It was about ensuring that his offspring, his niece,

(from the last part of the movie) would have a better future.

And due to his closer, connection with his family, his activities, or just luck, he didn’t develop dementia, like Miss Daisy did. And he had no obligation to go visit her but he did, and that is the meaning of this movie.

Money Is not everything.

Rich multibillionaires can influence and buy a lot. But you can’t fool all the people all the time. And people will wake up and change things for the better. I optimistically choose to believe this.