I realized yesterday that the only song I have ever heard with the word “porridge” in it was Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry.” Bob Marley, Rastafarian, ganja-smoking, Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley used that word in a song. “Porridge.” P-o-r-r-i-d-g-e. I have the song on a Jonathan Butler CD from the library right now. I listen to it over and over. I like Butler’s more polished version a little better than Marley’s version. No matter who sings it, though, the lyrics have this beautiful innocence to them that I could never explain. I would play it sometimes for Marcia or one of the girls and say, “Isn’t that a beautiful song.”
But they didn’t hear what I heard. I didn’t even know what I heard. I just loved it, but you can’t love something without knowing why you love it. Finally, I understood yesterday. It was the porridge. The porridge takes me back to the innocence of childhood. Back to “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” the children’s story that puts me back on my mother’s lap listening to her read the story. I can hear her voice repeating the little bear’s words, “And someone’s been eating my porridge!” I also remember porridge in the lyric of a nursery rhyme that I used to play on a vinyl 33 1/3 RPM Disney album on our record player: “Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.” I didn’t even really know what porridge was, but I associated it with a time of innocence and tenderness. I had to look it up in the dictionary.
In “No Woman, No Cry,” the man tells the woman that he cooked “corn meal and porridge, of which I shared with you." When I hear that line, I feel my childhood, when I felt happy and loved. When I didn’t know a person could be anything other than happy and hopeful. But the song is not about that. He’s telling her not to cry. Something is wrong. “No woman, no cry!” The first verse has already told us that they have had and lost “good friends.” For some reason, they seem too young to have faced such pain, but they stick together and the song plows on through the pain and the porridge to its hopeful finale, repeating “Everything’s gonna be alright” over and over until by the end I believe it with all of my heart. Despite their pain, the couple presses on, sharing life, love, corn meal and porridge. I think this is a good synopsis of how we live.
I could believe “everything’s gonna be all right” without much trouble at 17 and had my whole life ahead of me. Everything did just seem to be all right, or at least it turned out all right back then. When I found God, I thought He would make everything turn out all right, too. The plan worked to perfection for a while, but the enough things went wrong for people I knew and me that I had to redefine what “all right” meant.
Knowing that Bob Marley died of cancer when he was only 36 sprinkles a little sadness on this song. Mostly though, I am taken back to a time of childhood innocence, especially when I hear him sing the part about the porridge. I played the song again for Marcia the other day and told her about the word “porridge” being in the song, and she just said, “It makes perfect sense since Jamaica was colonized by the British. Isn’t porridge some kind of British soup?”
I guess I was disappointed when she said that because she didn’t feel anything close to what I felt. Her comment was so rationale, so logical. She heard British imperialism in the song. But for me, I am taken back to my mother’s lap when I hear the song, and she assures me that little bear and I are gonna be alright, no matter what.
But they didn’t hear what I heard. I didn’t even know what I heard. I just loved it, but you can’t love something without knowing why you love it. Finally, I understood yesterday. It was the porridge. The porridge takes me back to the innocence of childhood. Back to “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” the children’s story that puts me back on my mother’s lap listening to her read the story. I can hear her voice repeating the little bear’s words, “And someone’s been eating my porridge!” I also remember porridge in the lyric of a nursery rhyme that I used to play on a vinyl 33 1/3 RPM Disney album on our record player: “Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.” I didn’t even really know what porridge was, but I associated it with a time of innocence and tenderness. I had to look it up in the dictionary.
In “No Woman, No Cry,” the man tells the woman that he cooked “corn meal and porridge, of which I shared with you." When I hear that line, I feel my childhood, when I felt happy and loved. When I didn’t know a person could be anything other than happy and hopeful. But the song is not about that. He’s telling her not to cry. Something is wrong. “No woman, no cry!” The first verse has already told us that they have had and lost “good friends.” For some reason, they seem too young to have faced such pain, but they stick together and the song plows on through the pain and the porridge to its hopeful finale, repeating “Everything’s gonna be alright” over and over until by the end I believe it with all of my heart. Despite their pain, the couple presses on, sharing life, love, corn meal and porridge. I think this is a good synopsis of how we live.
I could believe “everything’s gonna be all right” without much trouble at 17 and had my whole life ahead of me. Everything did just seem to be all right, or at least it turned out all right back then. When I found God, I thought He would make everything turn out all right, too. The plan worked to perfection for a while, but the enough things went wrong for people I knew and me that I had to redefine what “all right” meant.
Knowing that Bob Marley died of cancer when he was only 36 sprinkles a little sadness on this song. Mostly though, I am taken back to a time of childhood innocence, especially when I hear him sing the part about the porridge. I played the song again for Marcia the other day and told her about the word “porridge” being in the song, and she just said, “It makes perfect sense since Jamaica was colonized by the British. Isn’t porridge some kind of British soup?”
I guess I was disappointed when she said that because she didn’t feel anything close to what I felt. Her comment was so rationale, so logical. She heard British imperialism in the song. But for me, I am taken back to my mother’s lap when I hear the song, and she assures me that little bear and I are gonna be alright, no matter what.