Sorry for the late post, my internet was down for the weekend.
I chose this song because it is a song that I could always play when I need something to relax me. Bob Marley is one of my favorite reggae artist, his words were not only powerful but also influential. In a sense that is what a poem does. This is why I feel like this song is like a poem. The song is different from a poem because, it has a chorus and a verse. Not many poems that I know have chorus that gets repeated a few time in the poem. A poetic device that I found in this song was rhyme. “- I shot him down and I say: If I am guilty I will pay” there was also repetitiveness in a few lines. The effects of all these poetic devices are that it allows that lines of the song to flow into each other more freely. It also causes the words to say in sync with the tune of the sounds. To attempt to answer the bigger question “are all songs poetry?” I would have to say yes it is. The reason for this is that in my opinion poetry was made to make you express yourself through a certain order of words. After listening to these words a person should feel a certain emotion, depending on what kind of words are being used. The words can have a good, bad, powerful, weak, happy or sad toll on a person.
I shot the sheriff
But I didn’t shoot no deputy, oh no! Oh!
I shot the sheriff
But I didn’t shoot no deputy, ooh, ooh, oo-ooh.)
Yeah! All around in my home town,
They’re tryin’ to track me down;
They say they want to bring me in guilty
For the killing of a deputy,
For the life of a deputy.
But I say:
Oh, now, now. Oh!
(I shot the sheriff.) – the sheriff.
(But I swear it was in selfdefence.)
Oh, no! (Ooh, ooh, oo-oh) Yeah!
I say: I shot the sheriff – Oh, Lord! –
(And they say it is a capital offence.)
Yeah! (Ooh, ooh, oo-oh) Yeah!
Sheriff John Brown always hated me,
For what, I don’t know:
Every time I plant a seed,
He said kill it before it grow –
He said kill them before they grow.
And so:
Read it in the news:
(I shot the sheriff.) Oh, Lord!
(But I swear it was in self-defence.)
Where was the deputy? (Oo-oo-oh)
I say: I shot the sheriff,
But I swear it was in selfdefence. (Oo-oh) Yeah!
Freedom came my way one day
And I started out of town, yeah!
All of a sudden I saw sheriff John Brown
Aiming to shoot me down,
So I shot – I shot – I shot him down and I say:
If I am guilty I will pay.
(I shot the sheriff,)
But I say (But I didn’t shoot no deputy),
I didn’t shoot no deputy (oh, no-oh), oh no!
(I shot the sheriff.) I did!
But I didn’t shoot no deputy. Oh! (Oo-oo-ooh)
Reflexes had got the better of me
And what is to be must be:
Every day the bucket a-go a well,
One day the bottom a-go drop out,
One day the bottom a-go drop out.
I say:
I – I – I – I shot the sheriff.
Lord, I didn’t shot the deputy. Yeah!
I – I (shot the sheriff) –
But I didn’t shoot no deputy, yeah! No, yeah!
