Song Lyric Sunday – Buffalo Soldier

Jim Adams, our host of Song Lyric Sunday, has handed over the prompt reins today to Di from the blog Pensitivity. She has asked us to find songs with Army, Soldier or War in the title or lyrics. I have chosen Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldier. I hope you enjoy it.

The Song

The Buffalo Soldiers were a segregated regiment of black cavalry fighters during the American campaign to rid the West of “Indians” so that “civilized” white people could gain the lands used by Native Americans. Ironically, many of the soldiers were slaves taken from Africa. Bob Marley gives a small history lesson as a protest song about the black man’s role in building the country that continues to oppress him.

Released two years after Marley’s death, this song was one of the last that he recorded. Issued as a single, it reached #4 on the UK charts, where Marley had as much success posthumously as he did when he was alive: seven more released charted after this one.

The song was included on Confrontation (1983), which was the first Bob Marley album released after his death, and also on the hits collection Legend (1984), which became the best-selling reggae album of all time.

Marley wrote this song with fellow Jamaican, Noel Williams, who went by the name King Sporty. Williams was an inventive creator of dance music, blending reggae and disco on his 1975 track “Music Maker,” and impelling the Miami bass sound as a producer of tracks like “Funky Fresh Beat” by Youth MC’s, released in 1986.

Courtesy of Songfacts

Lyrics

Buffalo Soldier, dreadlock Rasta
There was a Buffalo Soldier
In the heart of America
Stolen from Africa, brought to America
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival

If you know your history
Then you would know where you coming from
Then you wouldn't have to ask me
Who the heck do I think I am

I'm just a Buffalo Soldier
In the heart of America
Stolen from Africa, brought to America

Said he was fighting on arrival
Fighting for survival
Said he was a Buffalo Soldier
Win the war for America

Said he, woe yoy yoy, woe yoy yoy yoy
Woe yoy yoy yo, yoy yoy yoy yo

Woe yoy yoy, woe yoy yoy yoy
Woe yoy yoy yo, yoy yoy yoy yo

Buffalo Soldier, troddin' through the land woah
Said he wanna ran, then you wanna hand
Troddin' through the land, yeah, yeah

Said he was a Buffalo Soldier
Win the war for America
Buffalo Soldier, dreadlock Rasta
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival
Driven from the mainland
To the heart of the Caribbean

Singing, woe yoy yoy, woe yoy yoy yoy
Woe yoy yoy yo, yoy yoy yoy yo

Woe yoy yoy, woe yoy yoy yoy
Woe yoy yoy yo, yoy yoy yoy yo


Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Bob Marley / Noel Williams
Buffalo Soldier lyrics © Music Sales Corporation, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC