Bob Marley and the Wailers, “I Shot the Sheriff” from Burnin’ (1973)

By The XCHW

This song goes rather unnoticed when people are talking about subversive protest songs or anti-authority music in general. It’s easy to write off Bob Marley and the reggae music he helped pioneer as stoner background music. Too often, it is simply something people listen to when they’re hanging out around a campfire at a music fest, or playing hacky sack and waiting for Phish to take the stage. But those associations obscure the social and political depth of Marley’s music and writing. Marley’s songs have always contained an element of rebellion and revolution (the man survived a politically motivated shooting and played to 80,000 people two days after being wounded!), and “I Shot the Sheriff” is one of his finest.

It took a long time for me to learn to appreciate this song. I’m sure that I had heard it on the radio and in movies, but I never really paid any attention to it. Honestly, it might have been all the falsetto singing that led me to dismiss and disregard the original. Clapton’s version wasn’t any better, with just as much silly, high-pitched singing and a whole lot of self-indulgent guitar soloing. The song just seemed…silly. My tastes ran toward louder, faster, more aggressive music. I was interested in songs that rocked, and the versions of this that I had encountered on the radio did anything but.

The first time I really paid attention to the song was when I playing music with my parents. My mom wanted to give it a try. We would play in the basement as a three-piece. My dad on guitar, me on bass, and all three of us singing (poorly). My dad and I sat down to figure the song out. Initially, I was hooked by the music. The chords were odd. A lot of minors. It was very different from the 1-4-5 blues progressions that most rock songs revolve around. It felt almost jazzy. And the turnaround rift was brilliant! It was almost Beatles-esque in its genius and simplicity. A simple six notes descending down the minor pentatonic scale with a slight hiccup halfway through, followed by a tiny, one-measure pause, for a drum fill. Since we didn’t have a drummer, we made my mom play the fill on the tambourine. The song was unlike any of the music I had learned or listened to…and it kind of rocked.

I drew lead vocal duties for it. First off, I did away with any and all falsetto singing. I sang it the same way I tried to sing Rolling Stones and Pearl Jam songs, low and angry. And it worked for the song—it worked for the vibe and the lyrics. As I learned the words, I became enamored by them. They tell a story, like Bruce Springsteen or early Bob Dylan. The content could be lifted right out of one of John Steinbeck’s shorter novellas—Tortilla Flat or The Pearl. And the story is explicitly one of social justice and rebellion against authority in general, the police in particular.

In the song, the sheriff is hopelessly corrupt. He kills the narrator’s crops before they even have a chance to grow. Then he comes to kill the narrator, who shoots him down in self-defense. The “moral” for how to respond to a repressive regime or unjust police force couldn’t be clearer. Marley is quoted as having said: “I want to say ‘I shot the police’ but the government would have made a fuss so I said ‘I shot the sheriff’ instead…but it’s the same idea: justice.” The song’s story is a clear statement that justice is not always found by following the rules and working within the system. Sometimes the good guys need to work outside of that system, or even attack it directly to make things right.

One of the things I like best about this song is how well it makes a bold statement against oppression (How do you respond to the man keeping you and your family down? You shoot him in the face, that’s how!) while maintaining a deeply sympathetic awareness that not all people in positions of power are bad or corrupt. (The narrator is very clear about how he didn’t shoot the deputy, who seems to have never done him wrong.) I have friends and family members who have served or are currently serving in the military. I know that a number of my students will go on to serve as police officers. I would have trouble embracing a song that seemed to vilify them or advocate for violence against them purely on the basis of their vocation. I understand that pointing out systemic issues and problems associated with either institution is not an assault on the character of those individuals who work for them. When reading stories and having discussions about systemic racism in our country’s police forces, it can be tempting to adopt an extreme position. We love to see the world in black and white and talk about good guys and bad guys. But the more you look, listen, and learn, the more you understand and appreciate what a complicated world we live in. One in which any type of knee-jerk reaction is likely to be misplaced. Bob Marley understood that, and he wrote a song that embraced that complexity. (“If I am guilty, I will pay!”) He was saying that in the pursuit of a fair, just world, there can be no compromise. However, he left quite a lot of room in his song for complexity and nuance. That depth is a big part of why I still love playing and listening to this song to this day.