No Reggae No Cry

I know Bob Marley is revered by millions, and that reggae often has deep social significance. I appreciate those facts. But the music itself? I can't stand it.

I didn't have much exposure to reggae before I started college. But once I moved into the dorms, that seems to be all my schoolmates played. Songs like “Three Little Birds” were everywhere – blaring from girls' rooms, playing in the pool hall, requested at the bars we weren't old enough to patronize. And I had been a sheltered and meek child, my tastes formed by whatever was on the radio and, more often, whatever people around me told me was good.

So I acted like – and maybe even believed – reggae was the coolest music I'd ever been introduced to, that I was just as into it as every other one of my college's more worldly-seeming residents. I bobbed my head and shout-sang: Every little thing's gonna be all right! What a blast I'm having!

Even after I'd finally gotten the sneaking suspicion that I was far less enthusiastic about the genre than my friends were, for years I still felt too guilty to admit that those island beats actually drove me crazy. I had learned about Marley's life and tragic death; knew what his music had come to mean to so many others. Saying that I hated it somehow felt wrong.

The further my college years retreat into my past, though, the more comfortable I've gotten about who I am and what I like. I still respect Marley and other reggae artists, and I respect people's adoration of them. But now when “Three Little Birds” comes on the radio, I don't hesitate to change the station.