Buffalo Soldier (song)

"Buffalo Soldier" is a reggae song co-written by Bob Marley and Noel G. "King Sporty" Williams from Marley's final recording sessions in 1980. It did not appear on record until the 1983 posthumous release of "Confrontation", when it became a big hit and one of Marley's best-known songs.

The title and lyrics refer to the black U.S. cavalry regiments, known as "Buffalo Soldiers", that fought in the Indian Wars after 1866. Marley likened their fight to a fight for survival, and recasts it as a symbol of black resistance. [" [http://books.google.com/books?id=kX7oSejCWnQC&pg=PA198&lpg=PA198&dq=%22buffalo+soldier+was%22+%2Bsong&source=web&ots=ymguglqfqf&sig=wCjYdXML-rxe-fDUno2ZwNmDpM4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPA198,M1 Black Heretics, Black Prophets: Radical Political Intellectuals] " - Bogues, Anthony, Page 198, via Google Books. Accessed 2008-06-28.] The lyrics cannot be interpreted literally for historical inaccuracies. References to "Stolen from Africa, brought to America, Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival" conflict with the fact that importation of slaves to the United States was banned from 1808 onward, so that the youngest person "stolen from Africa" would have been 58 years old when the Buffalo Soldier regiments were first formed in 1866. Likewise the opening line "Buffalo soldier, dreadlock rasta" is historically inaccurate since the Rastafarian movement was not founded until the 1930s and centers around the person of Haile Selassie, who was not born until 1892.

It is often considered Bob Marley's most famous song, and is his most played radio single.The song's bridge, with the lyrics "woy! yoy! yoy!", is similar to the chorus of the Banana Splits' "The Tra-La-La Song", the 1968 theme from their TV show. Scholars disagree on whether the complexity of the section is strong enough to be considered plagiarism; the melodic run of 8-6-5 is common on the simple pentatonic scale. There has never been any litigation connected to the similarity. [cite news
title=Picking Up What They're Laying Down
author=Adam Conner-Simons
date=July 24 2007
publisher=Gelf Magazine
accessdate=2008-06-28]

References