Don't Forget

BOB MARLEY INTERVIEW, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA 18th APRIL 1979

Interviewer: In your music, you talk a lot about sex, politic, religion and ganja. Do you come into very much strife, very much pressure from the government about your attitude towards herb?

Bob: Well, my attitude you see can't get no pressure. Is only the police if you really foolish.

Interviewer: Peter Tosh had a lot of trouble last year from the authorities in Jamaica because he was advocating ganja very publicly, he was physically hurt. He was beat up I understand and he was in a lot of trouble. Is that true?

Bob: Yeah it was true, he had a problem with them.

Interviewer: Was he hurt badly?

Bob: Yeah, them hurt him.

Interviewer 2: The thing is you've come under a fair amount of pressure too. You even managed to get yourself shot at at some stage.

Bob: Yeah, you find people wicked some places. Really wicked.

Interviewer: So you don't fear for your personal safety in any situation, say, in Jamaica?

Bob: My safety is secure y'know. You see, words good but you have to have action! Any man can come out and run up him mouth and blah, blah, boom, boom. But we want to see the works. That mean, you might find one who a big and who aggresive, because him don't go through the danger that I go through. The amount of thing that I go through I can take it cool, because me been through it. When you figure you taking it cool, you taking it cool through the fire. It's not outside the fire you're taking it cool, it's in a the fire. You can not give away your life on ego, then all you was was a bag of argument and then you die. You have to have some action, then that mean it can have some meaning.

Interviewer: You say that when you smoke ganja, your conscience comes in front of your eyes. The stories and publicity say that you smoke one ounce of ganja per day. Is that true?

Bob: One ounce?

Interviewer: One ounce. It's a lot. What's the truth?

Bob: Sometimes smoke a good amount of herb if we want, and sometimes we don't smoke.

Interviewer: It's not nescessary that you take everyday, because this is what we've been told?

Bob: If you don't have it you don't have it, beacuse it's not everytime you have the right one. The right one you can't smoke a ounce of that!

Interviewer: Do you have a herbsman that comes with you to try your herbs before you do? Is this another publicity lie?

Bob: Try my herb? No man, no one try my herb.

Interviewer 2: Is smoking the herb an important part of your life, or is it just something you do for pleasure?

Bob: Smoking herb is freedom. If you want to be free, smoke herb.

Interviewer 2: How does it give you freedom?

Bob: Try it! (laughs)

Interviewer: Bob can we go back to politics? You're a very political man, so this is why I ask the question...

Bob: I would be glad if I was a political man.

Interviewer: You don't think you are?

Bob: No.

Interviewer 2: Could you ever see yourself becoming a political leader?

Bob: I don't see myself as a politician. I see myself as defending the right of His Majesty. I am a soldier in His Majesty army.

Interviewer 2: How did you feel when Haile Selassie died?

Bob: How did I feel when Haile Selassie live!

Interviewer 2: Wasn't he killed?

Bob: No. God cannot die. It's God! I mean when we say is God, it don't really mean we take a man like God. If him was not God we wouldn't say that because we are wise people. It is not true what they're saying, we don't bow to nothing. Because the gift of God is life. Him have to be a true and living God. To me a true and living God is the truth.

Interviewer: Where is the place in the bible that urges people to smoke ganja for Rastafarianism?

Bob: In the bible, God create man ...in Genesis you can find it. Plenty other places in the bible.

Interviewer: Bob, do you have a prediction for yourself and for reggae music in closing?

Bob: Well, I predict that I should never have a prediction! (laughs) But the things is I can't really predict a thing. We are saying that this is the generation that seek God. What we are saying is that... if I would be a hypocrite, I'll predict this thing, beacuse this is what have to happen. All the people on the pace of the Earth will know who Rastafari is through music. And is reggae music.

Dreams of Love

As the wintery air swirls through white snow
And the citizens of Earth stir waking below
Santa stomps the dust off his shoes

at his front steps
Awaiting Mrs Claus’s hug and the

love of his pets
Many children are starving, and

most have been given no gifts
Many celebrate other holidays,

or work a long cold day
The reindeer sniffle, and little elves

wipe their noses
As the sun lifts above
And the peoples minds say
Why didn’t I feel the love on this wonderful holiday?
I did, my christmas was white and beautiful
My family is healthy, and our tummy’s are full
We had a tall, green tree decorated so colorful
And there were presents underneath, and stockings stuffed

until they were chubby
Yet I know how lucky I am
To be blessed with this day, to be surrounded by warmth,
And I wish that one day soon all could experience this comfort,
Not only on Christmas but in each moment forward.

hey you

When I stare at your eyes
I see into, but not through
Young feelings are so true
as old feelings crumble
Your eyes are so humble
Mine are still staring
Seeing without caring
Is like tearing a bees stinger
From beneath the skin of a finger
When you stare at my eyes
I see no lies
Sparkles run up and down my arm
Electric shivers drip down my spine
And I thank god for creating this time
And for allowing your eyes to
Connect with mine

BrainWash TechKnowledgii

Suckin the desires out the people
According to plan, I been here for twenty, observed plenty

Gas go up everybody scream, gas go down scene becomes serene
Pulled into illusions 3d pleasure

false treasures on checkered screens
Chess games syncopated the leaders still smile
They messin wit me in many ways, who’s they?Everybody who ain’t on my team
Nowadays seems like I’m against the grain whichever way I roll good thing I’m a player like gary, ain’t worried bout nightmares dreams don’t scare me
Its reality that I worry about cuz no one seems to kare
People don’t care about livin

suicide numbers risin
No joy in skools many educators are just fools lookin for a meal ticket n shelter
Obama gets elected everybody celebratin helter skelter
Got drunk slapped hands now its back to the hating
And I’m an American in America
No tellin whats goin down east west north and south of here
Thru bbc filters I see the fear there too they scared too
As the rain steadily falls
And the Celtics continue to ball
My major, kinesiology
Bout to be voted out with no apologies
Even for the kids who be tryin real hard
In the country of freedom growth is retarded
First the arts and the music now the physical education
In the country of freedom love was departed
My people dyin from malnutrion and too much work
Like the navajo’s in the long walk we don’t know where we bein led
The food most eat ain’t much better than horse shit
Even worse brains meltin like ice cream

self esteem dropped a long while ago,

women get treated like animals in a zoo
Thank god alicia sang my boo
When the men get angry the men start fighting
When the boys see what men do the boys they follow you
Women are girls and babies are humans
And that woman she’ll do what she has too for love
Its all about the love, we take drugs to replace it

we can’t make it faking, the desire to be what I was born to be
Is what keeps my heart beating, we all know our own truth so
Let’s quit cheating and start being love
Sharing love
Seeing love in the young ones, live as one,

throw away the pills, y’all know the drill…

Scattered Brains

The sky is on fire, blue flames burst from in side
the mol ecu les of air, clouds are burning as boiling vapor
drizzles with raindrops dripping from acid skies,
reflecting sunlight into the seeds of the eyes
slithering through, illuminating all that it sees,
Into the earth and out the moon side
light particles glide effortlessly
Riding in circles
Tracing in dirt
Flirting with deaths edges
Catering to magnificent visions inside the head
Outside the head lie unimaginable treasures
Invisible to those whose woes contain them
Mind in relation to body is a
My people don’t know what we are, or what we are experiencing
My people don’t know reality
Reality is painful,
Reality is dreamland
I am
he know
I see through walls of crystal
He’s stalling as they call out to allah
Hassan I sabbah brainwash tactics
Crawling blind between corridors of spacetimes
Elastic fabric
Sublime vibrations emanate from
advanced technology
I’m still crying out for my soul amidst train wreck mists
Decked out in misery elated beyond belief
No matter where the sun shines memories are but shards
Of experience and grief the pieces of atmosphere
The assassin of fear, in this world there exists killers and healers
The former exploit’s the missing elements
The latter fills in the missing elements
Love can put me back together
Hate can tear my soul apart
A soldier in an incomplete world
Earth is not complete!
The creatures still compete
Replete of resources the globe wobbles onwards in cycles...

Pools

Wake up
from a dream
borne again
into a dream
self esteem rising
help him see
she learned from me
i was taught by it
bit by bit
candles lit
sitting staring
relate earth to moon
lovingly comparing
Light to ligh ter
tight er vi bra tions
I lay down for the sun
fighting no one
confidence flows
light fill ed clouds glow
and i don't know a thing
falling asleep once again
playing games and thanking god
because I can never win....