On Brightside, the eldest Marley finally wrote the song about his father he’d avoided for four decades, and found a better relationship with himself in the process.
The first time Ziggy Marley was on set for the 2024 Bob Marley: One Love documentary about his father, he got a “creative jolt.” So much so, he was inspired to make another album, Brightside, a dense, nine-track spiritual experience that doubles as medicine for the soul. Co-produced by his brother Stephen Marley and recorded in the 432 Hz frequency for meditation, the project includes songs like “Sweet Divine” and “Racism is a Killa,” and they uplift as much as they educate, much like Bob’s music does. As Bob’s eldest son, Ziggy had 12 years with his father and absorbed a lot of life lessons that were passed down to him.
Ziggy, a spitting image of Bob, had to tap into those years for “Many Mourn for Bob,” a song that acknowledges both his father’s imperfections and the seismic impact he had on the world as well as his own grief over losing his father to cancer in 1981. It’s a topic he doesn’t seem to shy away from, and there’s a sense the song was just as cathartic to write and sing as it was for his audience to hear. It was, after all, the first time he’d ever written a song specifically about his father.
“It was emotional,” he tells High Times of writing it. “It was emotional going back into my memories and into some things that I didn’t want to think about for a while. Also, connecting with him on a spiritual level in that way with this song, I would still have a strong connection, so it was emotional, but it was a …
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Author: Kyle Eustice / High Times
