You rock so, you rock so Like you never did before
I have clear memories of my dad showing me the sleeve of Babylon By Bus, the clever die-cut bus sleeve designed by the great unsung Neville Garrick and stumbling over the first word* before nailing the more 6 year-old friendly last two thirds of the title. I’m not sure if it was this or Pink Floyd’s Animals that first caught my interest in LP covers. I remember looking at the tyres on the bus front and back and being really struck by them.
Welcome to Bob Marley & The Wailers Babylon By Bus an LP that has been part of my life for 45 years at least.
Tired of waiting to inherit a genuine 1977 copy, I bought my own about 8 years ago and it’s definitely been my most played Bob Marley & The Wailers ever since.
Allegedly recorded over a trio of dates in Paris at a converted slaughterhouse^ on the Kaya tour Babylon By Bus serves as a document of the Wailers’ more expansive, slightly more experimental sound at the time.
I say ‘allegedly recorded’ as qualified Marleyologists point to the fact that one of the tracks here present hadn’t been played for at least two years when this LP was released; oh and the credits mention Copenhagen too. I think what we can say is that Babylon By Bus is as authentic a document as any 70’s live album^^.
But I digress, how can any album which opens with ‘Positive Vibration’ be anything other than joyous? Marley steps up to the mark and greets the crowd with an assertion of Haile Selassie I’s divinity^* and the song lopes forwards, steadily and unhurriedly. The bass playing of Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett is immense, as are the chorus of backing vox from Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt which are such a decisive part of the Wailers’ sound.
Obviously the next best place to go to is a B-side from a recent single and we get ‘Punky Reggae Party’. Mr Marley’s reaction to punk’s embrace of reggae and anti-racist sentiment. It’s not the greatest track, a jam without a killer hook really but the namechecks are tremendously exciting for nerdy boys like me.
I'm saying The Wailers will be there The Damned, The Jam, The Clash Maytals will be there Dr. Feelgood too
The line ‘No boring old farts, no boring old farts, no boring old farts /
Will be there, singin’‘ is one I find myself humming occasionally.
Needless to say the version of ‘Exodus’ here is just storming. The facts are that the song is the song is composed in the key of A minor with Marley’s vocal range spanning from G4 to A5. The reality is that this is a stunning, marching call to arms and spiritual action, given extra tinkling keys here by Earl ‘Wire’ Lindo.
Okay I’ll cut the track-by-track or we really will be here longer than the Pavilion De Paris was. The Wailers were an amazing supple beast on this form, I love the guitar fire of Al Anderson and Junior Marvin that enlivens ‘Concrete Jungle’ and adds righteous fury to ‘Heathen’. Equally they add a chill to the rocksteady-ish ‘Stir It Up’ that belies its title, one of my very favourites.
The highpoint of Babylon By Bus for me is a great take on one of my very favourite political songs ever, ‘War’ which interpolates the text of a brilliant speech given in 1963 by Haile Selassie to the United Nations, here is blended into ‘No More Trouble’. A typically gentle militant call for peace.
The last side of Babylon By Bus is a barnburner. The wistful, almost tentative ‘Is This Love’ smashed into the strident ‘Heathen’ and finishing with ‘Jamming’, normally a syrupy irritant for me but here a joyous reaching for melodic pleasure.
I’m not an enormous fan of the live LP*^ and I like the way that Babylon By Bus is a chance for the Wailers to showcase their talents more expansively than on the mighty studio albums that precede it, rather than the standard rockist fare of just playing all the big tracks a bit faster with some talking in between.
I’ve used the word ‘joyous’ about 49 times so far in this post, but I am struggling to find a better one to describe exactly how I feel about this, maybe slightly lesser known slice of their legacy. A joyous nostalgia maybe when I think of 6 year old me turning the cover over and looking at the front and then the back of the bus, marvelling at the possibilities of square art.
Good job that didn’t start something silly, like collecting gazillions of the critters.
As a man sow, shall he reap And I know that talk is cheap But the hotter the battle Ah the sweeter Joe victory (Heathen (almost))
1219 (Down).
*I got the ‘baby‘ bit right, not being totes au fait with ancient Mesopotamian cities I struggled with the rest**.
**although I was fairly heavily exposed to the Rastafarian use of it as a catch-all for imperialist capitalist evil via much of my dad’s listening.
^The Pavilion De Paris held 10,000 and only operated for 5 years and also hosted the gig for AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock VHS, I think (unverified at time of writing as the tape lives in the attic somewhere).
^^i.e. not at all. Although it undoubtedly sits way nearer the molten core of TRUTH than Unleashed In The East or Live And Dangerous.
^*a man who my grandmother met in Bridgwater, Somerset accidentally; a fact that never ceases to tickle me immensely to this very day. She said he was in the area to open a fete somewhere like Weston-Super-Mare, or Taunton.
*^utter hypocrite though I am; If You Want Blood, Kick Out The Jams, No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith, Festival In The Desert, Irish Tour ’74, It’s Alive … the list grinds on.
