“Get Up, Stand Up” by Bob Marley

"Get Up, Stand Up" was a two-man job, written by Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, and it made its debut on Burnin', the Wailers' 1973 album on Island. The title reads like a marching order, and the song moves with the patient, rolling confidence of reggae that has no need to shout.

What sets it apart is how many lives it has led. Marley and the Wailers recorded it and played it live in version after version, while Tosh and Bunny Wailer each made solo versions of their own. It turned up again on the compilations Legend and Rebel Music and on live records such as Live at the Roxy.

On the charts it was a modest thing at first, No. 33 on the Dutch Top 40 in 1973 and No. 49 in New Zealand in 1986, but its reputation outran any chart. The 1973 Island recording by Bob Marley & The Wailers entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and in 2020 Rolling Stone put it at the very top of its list of the 50 greatest Bob Marley songs, with The Guardian ranking it second among his 30 best.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.