Bob Marley & The Wailers, Crazy Baldhead | Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶

In the 44^th edition of Throwback Vibez (2024), we recollect and reflect on “Crazy Baldhead” by Bob Marley & The Wailers.

The vibes, the vibes, those Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶! Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 is a column that celebrates awesome songs from the past.  The records that grace this column are older, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re ancient – no fossils 🦴! All genres of music are welcome. In the 44^th edition of Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 (2024), we recollect and reflect on “Crazy Baldhead”, performed by Bob Marley & The Wailers. 

According to Bob Marley & The Wailers, “We gonna chase those crazy baldheads out of towns / Chase those crazy baldheads out of our town.” Ooh wee! “Crazy Baldhead” appears as the sixth track on the iconic musician and collective’s 1976 album, Rastaman Vibes.  “Crazy Baldhead” is set in a minor key which is fitting given its protest-driven, socially conscious nature. In the context of a reggae song, it’s idiomatic through and through with the chill, lazy groove, and those guitar chops.  Harmonized backing vocals amplify the vibe.

The songwriting on “Crazy Baldhead” is simple but memorable and telling.  Bob Marley keeps is socially conscious, about the state of his people and his country, from start to finish.  He’s angry regarding what has happened in his native land, singing, “Didn’t my people before me slave for this country? / Now you look me with a scorn / Then you eat up all my corn.” Shameful! Furthermore, he sings, “Built your penitentiary / We build your schools / Brainwash education to make us the fools / Hatred’s your reward for our love / Tellin’ us of your God above.”  While Marley aims this at Jamaica, this story is a familiar one, particularly in the United States regarding racism, slavery, etc. A classic from Bob Marley & The Wailers, arguably, “Crazy Baldhead” deserves even more love.

Bob Marley & The Wailers // Rastaman Vibes // The Island Def Jam Music Group // 1976

Bob Marley & The Wailers, Crazy Baldhead: Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 No. 44 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; The Island Def Jam Music Group; OpenClipart-Vectors, Speedy McVroom via  Pixabay]