While it is a universally acknowledged fact that pharmacological therapy has become the mainstay of medical practice, the therapeutic power of the spoken word—whether in the form of poetry or musical lyrics—cannot be discountenanced in the evolution of medicine. Poetic or lyrical texts offer a special kind of emotional healing that goes beyond the confines of medicine. Counter-pharmacotherapy, therefore, refers to those therapeutic strategies that exist outside conventional biomedicine.
These strategies may not replace orthodox medical interventions, yet they offer time-tested relief from conditions, especially those that affect mental health. Lyrical texts, as found in music, spoken word, and poetry, have a direct effect on the human mood, memory, and overall psyche, thereby qualifying as a form of counter-pharmacotherapy.
Among those musical artists whose songs fall into this category, Bob Marley’s reputation towers above all, making him a lyrical physician whose embellished songs heal wounds that medicine cannot. Having survived the harsh realities of postcolonial Jamaica in a poverty-stricken community called Trenchtown, Marley mustered the psychological fortitude to remain relevant by embracing music—a medium through which he tells the story of his life, one that is full of grit, resilience, and rebellion in the positive sense of the word.
He would eventually turn his struggles into victories on a global scale, as his lyrics—filled with inspiring words—became anthemic for all young people striving to free themselves from the oppressive manacles that come in the form of mental, economic, political, and social slavery. This is particularly true in postcolonial Africa, where the so-called dominant cultures, typified by neocolonial ideologies, reign supreme.
In the song Trench Town, contained in the 1983 posthumous album Confrontation, Bob Marley echoes the therapeutic power of his music when he says:
“We free the people with music.”
The freedom implied here is multidimensional; it is freedom from political and socio-economic oppression, as much as it is from mental slavery and its camp followers, such as depression. As the song further expresses, the inhabitants of Trenchtown were so impoverished that they even found their food in dustbins:
Oh-y, my head
In desolate places we’ll find our bread
And everyone see what’s taking place, oh-oo-wo!
Another page in history
However, the above lyrics, having painted a gory picture of the level of deprivation in Marley’s Trenchtown, also demonstrate their effect on the psyche of an average Trenchtowner, who could have died of depression due to such an ignominious mode of survival. But Marley’s counter-pharmacotherapeutic lyrical contraption made the difference.
Indeed, freedom comes from Bob Marley’s music, in the sense that many of his lyrics are imbued with soothing, inspiring, and energizing tempos that activate senses of resilience, resistance, hope, and the collective reclamation of lost glory. For example, in the song Lively Up Yourself, contained in the 1974 album Natty Dread, Marley urges the downtrodden not to remain enchained to their lowly condition, but to strive and aspire for freedom and emotional release from the cloud of despair surrounding them:
You lively up yourself
And don’t be no drag
You lively up yourself
‘Cause reggae is another bag
Perhaps one of the biggest mantras for anxiety and stress relief is found in the song Three Little Birds, contained in the 1977 album Exodus. Beyond the sweetness of the birds’ presence, their song dissipates ecocritical energies in the sense that it rallies the listener’s mind to the urgent need to discover the therapeutic power of nature as represented by the birds. Often depicted as symbols of hope, freedom, and the natural cycle of life, the birds typify nature’s presence and reassuring capacity, while their singing connects the listener to the blissful world of nature, where human worries are non-existent:
Rise up this morning, smiled with the rising sun
Three little birds pitch by my doorstep
Singing sweet songs of melodies pure and true
Saying, “This is my message to you-ou-ou”
In Coming in From the Cold, contained in the 1980 album Uprising, Marley asks a fundamental question that resonates with every human spirit all over the world, and then immediately proffers a lyrical solution—one that has been corroborated by many global figures as a source of encouragement, hope, and emotional healing for them:
Why do you look so sad, and forsaken?
When one door is closed, don’t you know, other is open?
Would you let the system make you kill your brotherman?
No, no, no, no, no, no! No, Dread, no! Woo!
To underscore the significance of Bob Marley’s music to the universal quest for justice and freedom, Nelson Mandela, during a visit to the Marley family in the 1990s, was quoted to have said to Rita, Bob’s widow:
“Your husband’s music kept me going while I was in prison.”
