Don't Worry 'Bout a Thing

There are songs that make me smile as soon as I hear just a bar or two. "Here Comes the Sun" is one. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is another. Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds," which you, like me, might have thought was called "Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright," is a third. When I turned on the car yesterday evening, the radio was tuned to the station with the reggae show, and I recognized the song immediately, smiled, and turned it up. By the time it got to "every little thing gonna be alright," I was filled with joy.

The first rock concert I ever went to was a outdoor Bob Marley show the summer I turned 15 (it's kind of a famous show, but I'll leave it at that). The day was hot and sunny and hazy in all sorts of ways, and it was one of the great musical experiences of my life. I'm fairly agnostic, but twice I have encountered individuals who were just clearly on a different spiritual plane than the rest of us. Once was when I heard the Dalai Lama speak in Delhi, and the other was at that Bob Marley concert. He was this rail-thin, dreadlocked, singing and chanting god of a man up there on the stage, and the entire stadium was an arena of bliss.

The following summer, my friend R and I were the only ones in town, or at least that's how I remember it. Both of our boyfriends were gone, and we spent the entire summer listening to Kaya, or at least that's how I remember it (we loved Live! and Exodus too, but that summer it was mainly Kaya). We sang along to "is this love, is this love, is this love, is this love that I'm feeling?" and "we'll share the shelter of my single bed," and "satisfy my soul." It's one of those records I know by heart, and hearing Bob Marley makes me remember that intense admixture of pain and pleasure that comes from being a teenager in faraway love, listening to the music that speaks your love and reassures you so profoundly.

I was sitting at my desk doing homework when the radio announcer broke in and said that Bob Marley had died. I remember it like I remember when John Lennon died (my dad was watching Monday Night Football, and I came downstairs and he came out of the bedroom and said that John Lennon had been shot, and it took me such a long time to understand that he was not just shot but dead, and that it was not just a random event but someone had purposefully killed him, and the next day when "Yesterday" came on the radio as my mother drove me to school, it was a completely different song than it had ever been). I remember looking at my bulletin board and trying to grasp what the announcer was saying, to get my head around the fact that this godly man, this lion of a man, this prophet, because that's really what he was, was dead.

And now what I want to say is so cheesy that I can't believe I'm even thinking it, let alone about to write it, but it's just true. The only consolation for Bob Marley dying so young, with so much music unplayed, so many songs unwritten, is that there is still the music he did play and the songs he did write. And I can still turn on my car and be filled with joy by the same notes and words that meant so much to me when I was 16 and yearning, even though now I'm 41 and happy.

Don’t worry about a thing,
'cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin’: don’t worry about a thing,
’cause every little thing gonna be all right!

Rise up this mornin’,
Smiled with the risin’ sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin’ sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin’, (this is my message to you-ou-ou:)

Singin’: don’t worry ’bout a thing,
’cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin’: don’t worry (don’t worry) ’bout a thing,
’cause every little thing gonna be all right!