no woman, no cry

My dear younger sister who is much more endowed than I gave me and Lakay this wonderful gift certificate for the itunes store! (mwah! mwah! thank you heaps!) Lakay and I have been into some downloading galore this weekend. First thing on my list was this song by Bob Marley, "No Woman, No Cry," which got me curious ever since my sis-in-law J shared it in Facebook. I liked the melancholic genre of the song. There's something so sad, yet hopeful, in it. I then looked it up and found these facts here.

One important detail that I got is this:

The original line of the song is "No, Woman, Nuh cry." Nuh is Jamacian for "don't," so what is meant by the lyric is No, Woman, Don't cry... He's leaving and reassuring her that the slum they live in won't get her down, that everything will be alright and "don't shed no tear."

"Her" refers to Marley's wife, with whom he lived in the slums in Jamaica. This song powerfully captures how husband and wife struggle with despair about their poverty. I am particularly annoyed by some imbeciles online who interpret this song as Marley's way of saying women should not cry. It's not that the husband was detached from the situation, but that he was there with the wife, giving her the very words she needed to hear:

"Little darling, don't she'd no tears, no woman no cry
Say, say, said I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
And then Georgie would make the fire light
As it was, love would burn on through the night
Then we would cook cornmeal porridge
Of which I'll share with you
My feet is my only carriage
So I've got to push on thru
Oh, while I'm gone
Everything 's gonna be alright, everything 's gonna be alright
Oh, my little sister
Don't she'd no tears
No woman no cry"
(lyrics copied and edited from here)

This poignant picture of a husband and wife is not uncommon, not just in tv dramas, but also in real life. But no matter how it is portrayed, the part that I find most moving is how husband and wife face it together, as a team, as partners. That very fact is enough to give one a sense of hope.

Take it away, bob marley!

the best heartbreak song ever!

Call me melancholic, but I really just love "Ghost" by Indigo Girls. I came to know of it through the BIG BLUE BLOB, a band I sang with in a couple or more gigs back there in Ateneo. (I actually miss singing with those guys!)
This morning I played this song while having breakfast, and memories just came rushing "right through me and I start(ed) to drown..."
I really have a knack for melancholic songs. In my view, they're the ones that have been most beautifully written. (Pain and beauty are both sides of a story).
If Lakay and I didn't end up together (God forbid!), I would endlessly be playing this song! Why? Read the lyrics.



There's a letter on the desktop that I dug out of a drawer
The last truce we ever came to from our adolescent war
And I start to feel the fever from the warm air through the screen
You come regular like seasons, shadowing my dreams

The Mississippi's mighty, but it starts in Minnesota
At a place where you could walk across with five steps down
And I guess that's how you started like a pinprick to my heart
But at this point you rush right through me and I start to drown

And there's not enough room in this world for my pain
Signals cross and love gets lost and time passed makes it plain
Of all my demon spirits I need you the most
I'm in love with your ghost
I'm in love with your ghost

Dark and dangerous like a secret that gets whispered in a hush
When I wake the things I dreamt about you last night make me blush
When you kiss me like a lover, then you sting me like a viper
I go follow to the river, play your memory like a piper

And I feel it like a sickness, how this love is killing me
I'd walk into the fingers of your fire willingly
And dance the edge of sanity, I've never been this close
In love with your ghost

Unknowing captor, you'll never know how much you
Pierce my spirit, but I can't touch you
Can you hear it, a cry to be free
I'm forever under lock and key as you pass through me

Now I see your face before me, I would launch a thousand ships
To bring your heart back to my island as the sand beneath me slips
As I burn up in your presence, and I know now how it feels
To be weakened like Achilles, with you always at my heels

And my bitter pill to swallow is the silence that I keep
It poisons me, I can't swim free, the river is too deep
Though I'm baptized by your touch, I am no worse than most
In love with your ghost
In love with your ghost
You are shadowing my dreams
In love with your ghost
In love with your ghost