No. 055 - Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “Is This Love” changed my life
No. 055 - Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “Is This Love” changed my life
The love song that hit Christian Banda like a freight train when he was a child
This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created by Grace Lilly, supported by readers.
• 3 min read •
If you’re a proper 90s kid, you grew up in a pile of CD cases.
Binders, towers, shelves, back seats of cars, you name it. CDs everywhere.
We kept our music library in the basement because that’s where my mom liked to throw family parties. These were AFRICAN parties. Them n***as was dancing until 4 a.m. EASY. I remember the walls of my bedroom two floors up shaking late into the night. It was a fun house to grow up in.
In elementary school I’d go downstairs by myself and rifle through everything we had. James Brown, Michael Jackson, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross. But there was one album I couldn’t get enough of. Legend, a compilation album by Bob Marley and the Wailers.
“Is This Love,” the first track, hit my 11-year-old pubescent ass like a freight train. I could barely finish the album because I kept rewinding that song. I was always a romantic — I wrote poems to girls and put ‘em in their lockers, I asked my middle school crush on a date with a lego flower I made — yet love had never been explained so purely to me.
Initially, “Is This Love” is posed as a question. Marley is describing all these primal yearnings to protect and comfort the woman he’s singing about, to live in a one-bedroom shack with her, “Every day and every night.” Then he does that thing we all do when we find ourselves consumed by someone else. He quietly wonders if it’s real. It’s gotta be real right? As he ruminates, the reasons shift from checklist to reverie. He’s falling in love all over again just thinking about all of the ways he wants to take care of this woman. And then the eureka moment. A lyrical “duh, dumbass” if you will:
Oh, yes, I know, yes, I know, yes, I know now
Oh, yes, I know, yes, I know, yes, I know now
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah, I'm willing and able,
So I throw my cards on your table
The transition from self inquiry to outward proclamation is what strikes me the most. He’s not an expert on love. He’s trying to figure it out like everyone else. But at the end of the day the answer was in front of him the whole time. This is often the case in matters of the heart, and “Is This Love” is a great reminder.
I don’t listen to “Is This Love” as much anymore because it’s too special to me. These days, listening to this song is the equivalent of driving a car I love with too many miles on it. I feel like if I play it too much I might lose it. I’m convinced that the secret to life is in this song though. It’s a gift in the plainest and simplest terms.
One time I was talking to my friend Alyson and I remarked that relationships are hard. I think about her response all the time. “No they aren’t. People just do too much.” ◆
About Christian
Christian Banda is a Western Massachusetts native who spent the last 13 years in New York honing his filmmaking skills and fortifying his passion for all things TV & Film. His credits include MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Netflix, WNYC, iHeartRadio, and Billboard. Christian was most notably a Segment Producer for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, which won the Emmy Award for 2023's Best Variety Talk Show. Christian recently made his directorial debut with the short film '98 Honda, which he's developing into a feature film with comedians Niles Abston, Ronny Chieng, and Roy Wood Jr.
Instagram @thatboybanda
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I've been listening to music my entire life. It is always around me! I have to thank my friend Annie who played her 45 of Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecilia" in 1970. It was the first time someone my age (I was 7) had a record that wasn't just for kids! Soon after that I began my own record collection and haven't stopped since!
Beautiful essay. Beautiful. I grew up worshiping the same type of music and this album hit me super hard as well. I think there was a year or so where I listened to almost nothing about this album. My song was always. "could you be loved". But they're all amazing