I’m not a great fan of very down, depressing music. I’m very sensitive to music, very sensitive to violinists and strings – almost can’t listen to them. So I love uplifting music, music that makes me feel happier. And ‘Three Little Birds’… I can’t think of another song ever by anybody that makes you feel so happy. I think that’s the happiest, most uplifting song I’ve ever heard. If ever I put together a mixtape – say someone is ill, or down, or depressed, or something, needs a lift – then that is the tune I play them.
Part of my book is a transcript of an interview that I did with him, when that song’s playing in the background. It’d just come out, and his entourage, whathaveyou, whoever they were, kept turning it up, and he was telling them to turn the music down, because he knew it was drowning out the tape that I was trying to interview him with, which I think is absolutely hilarious. Bob Marley turning his own music down! He’d just made that record, and he was in London promoting it; that’s how I got to interview him. He had a very deep patois and my concern was whether I could understand what he was saying, more than anything else, and getting it right. And then we got into a deep conversation about Rastafarianism and I was being very Newsnight about it really. I wasn’t concentrating on the music. The tape is appalling quality, because, you know, I was a journalist then and it wasn’t for broadcast, so you didn’t really care about if it was good quality – but ‘Three Little Birds’ comes blaring through.
