Marley

The Herb. Lots of people have teased me for all the things I say 'no' to.  At school, Ben Harper's 'Burn One Down' was frequently quoted to me: "Before you knock it, try it first, you'll see it's a blessing and it's not a curse". I had to admit that most of the music I loved, even the Beatles', was probably indebted to hallucinogenic inspiration. Easy to see the sense in it as an artistic tool.

I had my own reasons for not wanting to try it and hanging out with people smoking didn't do anything to motivate me - those nights were just so slow, and I felt our town was already slow and sleepy enough! (In fact, I was slow enough, too!) People took so long to say anything, or even to respond. People I meet now who've kept smoking a lot tend to have that slowness.

So I'm wondering if it's this mellow slowness of Bob Marley and his Rastafarian culture that the filmmaker is echoing in the feature-length documentary, 'Marley'. I enjoyed it, having got free tickets and a morning without work (and, like most people, just loving Bob Marley's music). A few people I spoke to liked the film to begin with but found it far too long. It IS long. Is it that the pace is too slow (without smoking?) or that our internet generation have rubbish attention spans who can't even watch a whole 4 minute clip on youtube? Perhaps try watching the documentary over a few nights, like a series...

Here's a 10 minute clip of an interview with Bob Marley in NZ (not in the film) so you can see what I mean



Here's a shorter clip (under 2 min)- the trailer for Marley.



One thing I came out of the film thinking was how amazing it was that one man could inspire so many people around the world and do so much, through his music, to promote good values. Amazing that such a man with such influence can appear to have been such a negligent parent. It must be frustrating for his children, especially his daughter interviewed in the film who felt she got to know her father more through the documentary than she had growing up. As with so many artists, what they offered the world was more than what they might have offered their families. But let's make the most of his gifts and let his inspiration live on.

On a very personal note, this is the song I wake up to most mornings, with my man singing it to me. He doesn't have Marley's voice but it does the trick - it not only gets me out of bed in a good mood but reminds me of the kind of person I want to be and how lucky I am to have someone in my life who reflects this and who brings out the me in me!