I have always thought that "No Woman No Cry" means something like "No,
honey, don't cry." I have heard the interpretation that it means "If
you don't have a woman, you won't be unhappy" (which doesn't sound
like the sort of message I would associate with Bob Marley.)
I found an interesting series of posts in the rec.music.reggae
newsgroup discussing the meaning of this classic song.
Here are a few of the posts:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Recently I've heard a lot of talk about the true meaning of the song,
"No Woman No Cry" and I thought that I'd pass it on to y'all. Some
say that it is in fact about how love can mess up your life and if you
just don't have any then you have no worries. But let's look a little
bit deeper. Take this line for example: "Love was burning through
the night" In my opinion this could have 2 meanings. The first and
most obvious one being that there was passion in the love and that
they were exerting it. The second and not so obvious one is that they
were in fact sharing some pot, making the woman possibly being "mary
jane" or they could have just been doing this in worship of Jah. Has
anyone else ever given these things thought? And what about "One
Love" could that also be about pot? Who knows. But in the end, they
DO feel alright.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bob is serenading his woman, telling her not to cry... You see in
Jamaica you can say 'No" and also mean 'Don't' and this is made
obvious by the next line when he says (Spelling normalised to
facilitate those who don't read patwa) "No little darling, DON'T SHED
NO TEARS, no woman, no cry"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the meaning that has been out upon the song a lot of times
indeed. I have also thought this in my youth. But then when I gained
more knowledge and insight, I came to the conclusion that then the
song would be strange because: "No Woman = No Cry, little darling,
don't shed no tear". The second sentence is a clear explanation. So if
you listen carefully you don't have to know patois, you can hear the
meaning isn't anti-woman but: "little darling, don't shed no tear".
But this all does not take away the fact that in the time when I used
to think it ment no woman means no cry, it gave me some pretty good
times.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In this track Bob talks about his time in Trenchtown, when the Wailers
were formed and they were generally spoken trying to keep their heads
above the water. There was this place in Trenchtown where they came
together, along with other sufferers. One if these sufferers was an
older man, named Georgie. This man always had a little campfire
burning, when the youths were hungry he would make cornmeal porridge
for them ("of which I share with you"). The song is livicated to his
mother, that is the one who needs to know that "everything is going to
be alright". Love burning through the night, can mean smoking up the
collie together, that is a thing that I do not know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My search strategy:
Google Groups: "meaning" + "no woman no cry"
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=meaning+%22no+woman+no+cry%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en
Thanks for asking an interesting question about one of the greatest
reggae songs of all time. If anything in my answer is unclear, or if
the link does not function, please do not hesitate to ask for
clarification.
Best wishes,
pinkfreud |
