The thing about reggae is behind the soulful and nostalgic beat, is a deep, heartwarming message. Behind the glorified dreadlocks culture and pot smoking as identified with most Rastafarians is a lesson from the reggae lyrics about daily life encounters, successes, a message of peace, love and unity which in its totality is a message of humanity. Reggae lyrics are inspirational and so are the iconic lyricists who help us to understand the world from a different perspective. This is from the rich lyrics that are oftentimes lost in the lack of understanding of the genre. In music I swear by the lyrics and this isn’t any different with my interest in reggae music. Reggae lyrics cover spiritual themes for the soul and social justice since its inception to the world due to the weight of the social consciousness of the lyrics.
The lyrics to the song, Crucial by Nasio Fontaine depicts an angry society in despair. A tired people, sad and disappointed by the state of the world to a point that they are “raging out of control.” There is too much fog in the air, a tunnel too dark to see a light at the end of it. The world is on fire that has engulfed the society with pandemics, economic strife, environmental degradation, existential crisis among its people. Everything is going down south and humanity is losing its grip from the last shreds of dear hope. There is weeping and wailing and more tribulations. Fear of war, discrimination, human rights violation and profiling. It is a dog-eat-dog world. People want to be liberated; they want to feel alive rather than simply existing.
Crucial is one of my favorite songs as the lyrics to this song address a message that is a current concern to humanity. A message that seems like a foreseen future considering the time it was relayed compared to its effect on the current state of the universe. It is paramount that we take these matters with great importance, not just for ourselves but even for the generation that looks up to us. It describes life in black and white without hiding any facts in a grey area. Life is a rollercoaster, there are good days and bad days. There are successes and failures. There exists love and hate. Not everything turns out as expected. It is a state of hope and utopia versus despair and reality.
Naturally, we live by hope. We take everything in life with an optimistic state of mind. Things happen, we stumble and we fall but rise up and say things are going to get better. Tomorrow is going to be a better day, after all it rains hardest on people who deserve the sun but when the sun rises, they get the best of it. But will the stars ever come out for us? This is the question I get from the lyrics to this song. We hope and pray for things to get better but sometimes they get worse instead.
What if we never get the best of what we are hoping and praying for? What if we think that our life is on track not aware that the track, we are on is a broken one? From the lyrics to this song, we understand that not everything will come on a silver platter. Everything we work for might fail again and again but perhaps if we hold on a little longer, we might see a silver lining.
However, Nasio Fontaine does not end there. He reminds us that things are bound to get worse before they get better. Though it is true, many take it as a real-life cliché. Personally, I have been caught up in situations where everything I touch turns into stone. Sometimes it feels like someone put a curse spell on me. It is difficult to understand why everything just isn’t working out.
In the midst of the fog, it is hard to believe that anything is ever going to work out and that life is going to get better. That I am supposed to hold on a little longer because pain and suffering may last only for the night and joy comes in the morning. That the hour before dawn is the darkest. Hope is one thing that is difficult to have in such times but it is the only thing left. Just because things are not working out at the moment does not mean we should down our tools and stop fighting. Every breathe we take is worth fighting for the next. Optimism is what remains. The lyrics to this song give us hope and soothe our mind.