Redemption Song
Author	Bob Marley
Tour	Zoo TV
Date	June 4, 1993
Location	Olympiastadion in Munich, Germany
Streaming  Real Audio	1 minute 57 seconds
Download	228 Kb

 
Bono once quipped that you have to be either black or Irish to sing this song.  It's a cover of Bob Marley's famous song of freedom. 

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Redemption Song

Old pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
All I ever had, is songs of freedom
Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fullfill the book

Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
Redemption songs, redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but oursekves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Yes some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fullfill the book

Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
All I ever had, redemption songs
These songs of freedom, songs of freedom

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A year earlier, Bono inducted Bob Marley into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.  Here's his speech. 

"I know claiming Bob Marley is Irish might be a little difficult here tonight, but bear with me. Jamaica and Ireland have a lot in common.  Naomi Campbell, Chris Blackwell, Guinness, a fondness for little green leaves- the weed. Religion. The philosophy of procrastonation- don't put off till tomorrow, what you can put off till the day after. Unless, of course, it's freedom. We are both islands; we were both colonies. We 
share a common yoke: the struggle for identity, the struggle for independence, the vulnerable and uncertain future that's left behind when the jackboot of empire is finally retreated. 
The roots, the getting up, the standing up and the hard bit, the staying up. In such a struggle, the voice of Bob Marley was the voice of reason...These were love songs that you could admit listening to, songs of hurt, hard but healing, tuff going...Songs of Freedom, where that word meant something again ... Redpemtion songs.  A sexy revolution where Jah is Jehovah on street level. Not over his people but with his people. Not just stylin', jammin'. Down the line of Judah, from Eithiopia, where it all began for the Rastaman... 

I spent some time in Ethiopia with my wife, Allie, and everywhere we went we saw Bob Marley'sface...There he was, dressed to hustle God. Let my people go. An ancient plea.  Prayers catching fire in Mozambique, Nigeria, the Lebanon, Alabama, Detroit, New York, Notting Hill, Belfast. Dr. King in dreads. A Third and a First World superstar.  Mental slavery ends where imagination begins. Here was this new music, rocking out of the shantytowns....Lolling, loping rhythms, telling it like it was, like it is, like it ever shall be. Skanking. Ska. Blue Beat. Rock Steady. Reggae. Dub. And now ragga. And all of this from a man who drove three BMW's.  BMW -Bob Marley and the Wailers, that was his excuse! 
 
Rock & Roll loves its juvenilia, its caricatures, its cartoons. The protest singer, the pop star, the sex god, your mature messiah types [laughs]. We love the extremes, and we're expected to choos: the mud of the blues or the oxygen of gospel, the hellhounds on our trail or the band of angels. 

Well, Bob Marely didn't choose or walk down the middle. He raced to the edges, embracing all extremes, creating a oneness. His oneness. One love. He Wanted everything at the same time. Prophet. Soul rebel. Rastaman. Herbsman. Wildman. A natural-mystic man. Lady's man. Island man. Family man. 
Rita's man. Soccer man. Showman. Shaman. Human. Jamaican! 

So the spirit of Bob and the spirit of Jah lives on, in his son Ziggy and his lover Rita Marley...I'm proud to welcom Bob Marley into the Hall of Fame. 

Amen!" 

U2 and Bob Marley are both signed to Island Records.