No Woman, No Cry

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“No Woman, No Cry”

Single by Bob Marley & the Wailers
from the album Natty Dread

Released

1974

Genre

Reggae, Rhythm and blues

Writer(s)

Credited to Vincent Ford

Bob Marley & the Wailers singles chronology

"No Woman, No Cry"
(1974)

...

"No Woman, No Cry" is a reggae song made famous by Bob Marley & The Wailers. The song first became world-famous in 1975 through the studio album Natty Dread. The live version from the 1975 album Live! is perhaps best known — it was this version which was released on the greatest hits compilation Legend. Though Bob Marley likely wrote the song himself, songwriter credits were given to "V. Ford". Vincent Ford was a friend of Marley's who ran a soup kitchen in Trenchtown, the ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica where Marley grew up. The royalty cheques received by Ford ensured the survival and continual running of his soup kitchen.^[1]

A more accurate rendering of the title in Jamaican patois would be "No, woman, nuh cry". Nuh, which makes a shorter vowel sound for no, is the equivalent of the contraction don't.^[2]

The song has since been covered by such artists as Sublime, Blues Traveler, O.A.R., Devon Allmans Honeytribe, Joan Baez, Xavier Rudd, Jimmy Buffett, Jonathan Butler, Gilberto Gil (Daniela Mercury recorded this version at Balé Mulato - Ao Vivo),^{[citation needed]} The Fugees, No Use for a Name, Utada Hikaru, String Cheese Incident,NOFX (live, with El Hefe playing and singing alone), Tila Tequila, Boney M, Rancid, Andrés Calamaro, Hugh Masekela, Jimmy Cliff, Pauline Black, Peter Rowan, Bill Bourne, Graham Parker, Keller Williams, Eterna Inocencia, as a duet by Faith Hill with Tim McGraw , Sean Kingston^[3] (see video here), and the Arabic singer Ali Bahar. The "G-punk" band Hed PE as of the year 2007, began covering the song at many of their live shows. The ska punk band [spunge] is the only band to ever have officially been given permission by the Marley family to change the lyrics, for their cover on the album Room For Abuse.^[4] The pop rap band Sweetbox used a part of the song for the chorus of their song "Everything's Gonna Be Alright".