No Woman, No Cry
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| "No Woman, No Cry" | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Bob Marley & the Wailers from the album Natty Dread | |||||
| Released | 1974 | ||||
| Genre | Reggae | ||||
| Writer | Credited to Vincent Ford | ||||
| Bob Marley & the Wailers singles chronology | |||||
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"No Woman, No Cry" is a reggae song made famous by Bob Marley & The Wailers. The song first became world-famous in 1975 through the studio album Natty Dread. The live version from the 1975 album Live! is perhaps best known — it was this version which was released on the greatest hits compilation Legend. Though Bob Marley likely wrote the song himself, songwriter credits were given to "V. Ford". Vincent Ford was a friend of Marley's who ran a soup kitchen in Trenchtown, the ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica where Marley grew up. The royalty cheques received by Ford ensured the survival and continual running of his soup kitchen.[1]
A more accurate rendering of the title in Jamaican patois would be "No, woman, nuh cry". The "nuh", which makes a shorter vowel sound for "no", is the equivalent of the contraction "don't".[2]
The song has since been covered by such artists as Blues Traveler, O.A.R., Devon Allmans Honeytribe, Joan Baez, Xavier Rudd, Jimmy Buffett, Jonathan Butler, Gilberto Gil (Daniela Mercury recorded this version at Balé Mulato - Ao Vivo)[citation needed], The Fugees, Murder One, No Use for a Name, Utada Hikaru, String Cheese Incident, Sublime, NOFX (live, with El Hefe playing and singing alone), Tila Tequila, Boney M, Rancid, Andrés Calamaro, Hugh Masekela, Pauline Black, Peter Rowan, Bill Bourne, Graham Parker, Keller Williams, Eterna Inocencia, and as a duet by Faith Hill with Tim McGraw and the Arabic singer Ali Bahar. The "G-punk" band (həd) p.e. as of the year 2007, began covering the song at many of their live shows. The ska punk band [spunge] is the only band to ever have officially been given permission by the Marley family to change the lyrics, for their cover on the album Room For Abuse.[3] The pop rap band Sweetbox used a part of the song for the chorus of their song "Everything's Gonna Be Alright".
No Woman, No Cry (as recorded by Marley & the Wailers) was No. 37 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
