Bob Marley captured the concerning mood of the times with his warning of impending global catastrophe – as relevant today as when he sang it in 1979.

It would have been nice, back then, to think Bob Marley’s song marked a moment in time that we would look back on as a scary time we got through.

Forty-five years later, it’s evidence that we haven’t learned a thing, with the world on the brink and protest songs back in fashion, as Springsteen has shown.

Listening to Bob sing of war and poverty, inequality and government oppression, it’s as if he’s still alive and suffering with the rest of the world in 2026.

“You see men sailing on their ego trip,” he sings, as The Wailers find a mellow groove around Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett’s bubbling bass.. “No care for you, no care for me.”

No need to name names for the present-day parallels to his targets. “Now they sitting on a time bomb,” he warns. It’s hard to disagree.

The song appeared on the Wailers’ album Survival, a collection of protest songs of resistance whose militant theme was emphasised in the inner sleeve with a schematic of a transatlantic slave ship.