How I Became a Ghost Soundtrack: "Redemption Song"

How I Became a Ghost

Category B - D

“You cannot keep your eyes on the bloody footprints you have left behind you. You must keep your eyes on where you are going” (48).

“Redemption Song” 

Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the 'and of the Almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill the book.

I believe there is close relationship between Bob Marley’s song “Redemption Song” and the pain endured by Native Americans. Native Americans much like Rastafarians, the religion that Marley identifies with, have an optimistic view on life. Regardless of the Choctaws pain throughout the process of being “robbed” by the soldiers and making a new home, Isaac’s father gave encouraging words to his son: “you must keep your eyes on where you are going” (48). Rather than dwelling in the past and letting it hold you down, you must “emancipate yourselves from mental slavery” and keep moving forward. This quote from the book and this song both have a theme of hope and perseverance. Without these encouraging themes, one would just be living by breathing rather than actually living. There is a constant message from the book and the song that “they” can take away their physical belongings, but they cannot take away their mental freedom. Although the passage from the book and the song I chose explain different historical situations, they both have a hope for a better future and an optimism that is necessary when placed in difficult situations.