Ziggy Marley on his father, finding balance, and the 30th anniversary of the ‘Arthur’ theme song
David “Ziggy” Marley doesn’t think he could ever write another song about his father, the late Bob Marley. “Many Mourn for Bob,” from Ziggy’s spring record, “Brightside,” seems to say it all.
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“I think that’s the song — I think that’s ‘the one,’” he said on a phone call ahead of his return to Levitate Music Festival this Saturday, and subsequent performances at the Tabernacle and the Chicken Box. “I couldn’t make that up again. Like, ‘Oh, let me write another song about my father’ — it doesn’t work like that, you know?”
Marley, 57, understands that everything comes in due time. When promoting “Brightside” earlier this year, he took to Instagram to reveal a story from his teen years: “Daddy passed away on May 11, 1981. I didn’t shed tears until September, my first day in high school.” Marley wrote that he was in a “state of observation and inner reflection” while the grief simmered inside him.
It’s no surprise, then, that Marley’s first proper tribute to his father is the result of 45 years of contemplation. Across nine solo albums and 10 records with the Melody Makers — a family band that he led until the early aughts — “Many Mourn for Bob” is the first song of its kind in Marley’s discography. The lyrics are about Marley’s perspective as much as they are about his father, shedding a new light on Bob that could only come from someone who knew him outside of the context of fame.
Forms of light seem to be the best way to describe the contents of “Brightside.” (Despite being a son of the best-known reggae performer of all time, Marley said he doesn’t “really like the ‘genre thing’ so much” when explaining his own work.) There’s the expected stretches of undiluted sunshine (“Make It Paradise,” “JAH We Give Glory”), broken up by lightning-rod calls to action (“Hey People Now,” which laments corruption and pollution, and the self-explanatory “Racism Is A Killa”).
“Brightside” is Marley’s first album since 2020’s “More Family Time,” a kid-friendly effort that featured bigwigs across genres, such as Busta Rhymes, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, Tom Morello, and Marley’s brother Stephen. Afterwards he pivoted to film, working as a producer for “Bob Marley: One Love,” the 2024 biopic that revisits challenging events from Bob’s later years, such as an assassination attempt and his cancer diagnosis.
“My idea was for that movie was. . . to search for the emotional, human side of him,” Marley said. “Not how he became a star, not how he became a legend, not about how he’s such a prolific songwriter and a prophet, or whatever – social justice and all these things – but what happened to him as a human being.”
His work on the biopic didn’t cause him to write “Many Mourn for Bob” — the song “just happened,” Marley said — but its perspective mirrors that of the movie. The song opens with a sound bite of Bob speaking to an interviewer about the possibility of being murdered.
“I feel like it’s appropriate that people hear him talk about himself in that way . . . because now everybody loves him, right?” Marley said. “But there was a time when people wanted to kill him. So to hear it come from his voice, that’s a human being talking to you.”
If “Many Mourn for Bob” is a teaching moment for listeners, then “Why Let The World” is Marley’s lesson for himself. The song, which features Trombone Shorty and Sheila E., is a respite that brings “some joy for the sorrow,” as the lyrics say, tempering the intensity of the album’s sociopolitical subject matter. “Why let the world trouble me?” he asks on the chorus.
That levity didn’t come naturally. Marley recalled the night that inspired the concept, as he felt a mounting pressure while watching the news: “So much negativity, so much division, war, all of these things.”
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“I had to teach myself that it’s OK not to be concerned every single minute of the day, not to be, like, under pressure,” he said. “Like, ‘You need a freaking break, bro, take a break. It’s OK, it’s all right. Tomorrow is another day. We’re gonna get back in the fight.’”
Marley called the song “therapeutic” and “like a light” (there’s that theme again) as he worked on “Brightside.” “Anytime I felt like [expletive], I would sing that song to myself.”
“It’s like taking back some control from the world of what’s going on in my mind, in my home, in my heart,” he added.
Another particularly uplifting tune from Marley’s catalog has been getting national attention lately. “Believe in Yourself,” the song he recorded with the Melody Makers as the theme song for the beloved children’s cartoon “Arthur,” turns 30 this year. Many fans are only now realizing that it was Marley’s voice encouraging them to “Listen to your heart/Listen to the beat/Listen to the rhythm/The rhythm of the street.”
“I guess nobody watched the credits,” he said. But Marley’s taking the belated recognition in stride.
“I’m very happy to be the one to have performed it and sang it, and, I mean, the message is right up my alley,” he added. “They did a really great job in bringing that forward to me, and realizing that reggae music is children’s music.
“Nobody thought it would be this big a deal, though. I didn’t – I would have [negotiated] a bigger contract.”
ZIGGY MARLEY
At Levitate Music & Arts Festival, Marshfield Fairgrounds, 140 Main St., Marshfield, Saturday, July 18. Only two-day tickets available: $269 levitatemusicfestival.com
At the Tabernacle, 80 Trinity Park, Oak Bluffs, Monday, July 20, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $62 and up. mvcma.org/tabernacle
At the Chicken Box, 16 Dave St., Nantucket, Tuesday, July 21 and Wednesday, July 22, 9 p.m. Sold out.
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