Let me just toss this in…
This has been a "meaningful" song to me for some time… but I'll skip elucidation on that atm…
Or actually I won't: I had a professor once say to me that "Redemption is one of the great themes in the Western tradition"… or basically that. And it struck me as TRUE and also as EXTREMELY pertinent to my personal situation at that particular time. And it also SPECIFICALLY called to mind this Bob Marley tune.
And… if you actually dig into it… this Bob Marley tune is VERY MUCH a part of the "Western Tradition" and INHERENTLY so, and MORESO than some other crap.
Observe: Bob Marley follows the Rastafarian path of honoring "Ras Tafari" i.e. Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia. But why did Haile Selassie actually obtain such prestige… yes there were "world-historical" events like him exposing the "League of Nations"….but in many ways the fact of his being the head of the nation envigorating the Ethiopian Orthodox Church MADE him. It was sort of a "fringe" Christian church, but with solid historical roots. Even today, there are certain "canonical" books of the "Bible" that the Ethiopian Church endorses and that survive only in their "dead" language. Take it or leave it, but so it is. I admit I've only scarcely perused them myself.
That said, I would certainly find it amusing if the Ethiopian Church turns out to be right in some deep way.