Live double album · recorded mainly at the Pavillon de Paris, 25–27 June 1978 (Kaya Tour), with earlier London recordings · released 10 November 1978 · 13 tracks. Full lyrics for each song are linked below on Genius.
Taken together, the thirteen songs of Babylon by Bus lay out the whole span of Bob Marley's message: fierce resistance to "Babylon" — the corrupt, oppressive world system — side by side with love, joy, and spiritual uplift. Roughly half the record is protest and prophecy: Exodus casts the Rastafarian journey out of oppression as a modern Book of Exodus; War sets Emperor Haile Selassie's 1963 UN speech to music, declaring there can be no peace while racism and second-class citizenship stand; Rat Race, Concrete Jungle, and Rebel Music indict political violence, urban poverty, and police harassment.
The other half answers that struggle with what sustains people through it: romantic devotion (Stir It Up, Is This Love), communal celebration (Jamming, Lively Up Yourself, Punky Reggae Party), spiritual resilience (The Heathen), and the deliberate choice of positivity over bitterness (Positive Vibration). Captured live in Paris at the peak of the band's power, the album argues that rebellion and joy are not opposites — reggae itself is the vehicle that carries both, uplifting the downpressed while refusing to hate.
A call to live positively and drop the daily quarreling — to "make way for the positive day" and trust Jah's love to carry the people. It sets the album's tone: righteousness expressed as warmth, not anger.
"Rastaman vibration, yeah — positive!"Full lyrics on Genius →
A celebration of the late-70s alliance between reggae and punk rock — name-checking The Jam, The Damned, and The Clash. Two rebel musics, both rejected by the mainstream, throw a party together where "no boring old farts" are welcome.
"New wave, new craze… it's a punky reggae party"Full lyrics on Genius →
The revolutionary heart of the record. It maps the biblical Exodus — Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt — onto the Rastafarian hope of leaving Babylon for the Fatherland, calling the "movement of Jah people" toward freedom and equal rights.
"Movement of Jah people!"Full lyrics on Genius →
Written for his wife Rita, this is Marley at his most intimate — a slow-burning love song built on warm domestic metaphors: pushing the wood, blazing the fire, quenching a lover's thirst. Desire as tenderness.
"Stir it up, little darlin', stir it up"Full lyrics on Genius →
A sharp critique of political corruption and manufactured violence — the "rat race" of society. It famously insists Rastafarians be left out of covert political games, warning people to remember their history and destiny rather than live in illusion.
"Rasta don't work for no C.I.A."Full lyrics on Genius →
Life in the inner city as a jungle of concrete where "no sun will shine" — poverty and confinement without literal chains. One of Marley's bleakest and most beautiful lyrics: you can be legally free and still not free at all.
"No chains around my feet, but I'm not free"Full lyrics on Genius →
A playful story-song: the narrator wanders into town — Piccadilly Circus, Miss Brown, temptation on every corner — looks around, and decides this scene isn't for him. He'd rather ride on than settle down in the kinky part of town.
"I just can't settle down in a kinky part of town"Full lyrics on Genius →
Pure exhortation: shake off the heaviness, move your body, don't be a drag. Reggae presented as its own medicine — the groove itself is the argument.
"Lively up yourself, and don't be no drag"Full lyrics on Genius →
Born from a real nighttime police checkpoint stop, it asks why free people can't roam their own open country — tossing away a "little herb stalk" before the search. The answer to the roadblock is the song itself: rebel music.
"Why can't we roam this open country?"Full lyrics on Genius →
"War" sets Emperor Haile Selassie I's 1963 United Nations address almost verbatim to music: until the philosophy that ranks one race above another is finally abandoned, everywhere is war. The medley resolves into "No More Trouble" — the plea that what the world needs now is love.
"Until that day… everywhere is war"War — full lyrics on Genius → No More Trouble — full lyrics on Genius →
A joyful, unguarded declaration of love and commitment — the promise to love and care every day and every night, even if all there is to share is the shelter of a single bed. Poverty doesn't scare the singer; Jah provides the bread.
"We'll share the shelter of my single bed"Full lyrics on Genius →
A battle hymn for the weary: rise up, fallen fighters, and take your stance again. It leans on proverb — he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day — and promises that the hotter the battle, the sweeter Jah's victory.
"Rise up, fallen fighters — rise and take your stance again"Full lyrics on Genius →
The closing celebration: gathering to make music "in the name of the Lord," with no rules, no vows, no price. Life and true love are worth more than gold, and neither bullets nor bribes can stop the jam.
"We're jamming in the name of the Lord"Full lyrics on Genius →