Coming in From the Cold

Bob Marley recorded it in 1980, but Coming in From the Cold sounds as if it could have been written at any time. It's not just another song from Uprising: it kicks off with a rhythm that seems to drag you from the street into a warm place, as if the cold were something left outside. The bass of Aston "Family Man" Barrett and the guitar of Junior Marvin intertwine in a pattern that never repeats the same way twice, yet always makes you feel like you're in the same place. It's not a perfect loop, but something alive, as if the band were playing in a space where time isn't fully controlled. Marley's voice enters softly, almost whispering at first, then expands as if the heat he describes were already in the air.

They recorded it in Jamaica, with Errol Brown and Chiao Ng handling the controls, but the real producer was the atmosphere: the studio wasn't a cold place, but one where music was breathed. Chris Blackwell appears in the credits, but the mix was made by Bob Marley & The Wailers together, as if each contributed something from their own experience. It lasted 4:31, just long enough to keep the cold from creeping back in. The album Uprising was released in June of that year, and though it wasn't their most commercial record, songs like this proved they didn't need chart numbers to feel urgent. In the United States, it reached number 41 on the Black Albums chart and 45 on the Pop Albums chart, but in the United Kingdom the entire album struck hard, as if they knew there was something here that couldn't be ignored.