# Bob Marley & The Wailers — No Woman, No Cry

Bob Marley & The Wailers’s No Woman, No Cry (1975) appears on 3 of our lists — Reggae, Sung to Someone, and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred, highest at No. 1 in Reggae. Every verdict, in full.

- **Released:** 1975
- **Label:** Island
- **On:** Reggae, Sung to Someone, and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
- **Updated:** 2026-08-29
- **Artist:** [Bob Marley & The Wailers](https://waxonia.com/artist/bob-marley-and-the-wailers/)
- **Canonical page:** https://waxonia.com/track/bob-marley-and-the-wailers--no-woman-no-cry/

## What 3 lists say

### No. 1 in [Reggae](https://waxonia.com/genre/reggae/)

The live version, because the studio take is merely very good. Seven minutes in which a man consoles a room by describing a yard in Trenchtown, and the organ line does half the consoling.

### Picked by [Sung to Someone](https://waxonia.com/theme/sung-to-someone/)

Not a title about women in general, whatever fifty years of misquotation suggest. It is "no, woman, don't cry" — said to one person sitting in the government yard, and everything else in it is what he is telling her to remember.

### Picked by [The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred](https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/)

Seven minutes of a man consoling a room by describing a yard. The most widely loved record here, and it earns every bit of that.

## Analysis

9 sections, the first drop of 2 at 0:37, 9% of the way in, 12% of it spent climbing.

- **Tempo:** 80.8 BPM — the pulse reads at half this too — counted the way the genre counts it
- **Key:** F minor
- **Dynamic range:** 5.1 dB — moderate range, typical of a modern master
- **Length:** 7:11

- `0:00` A · **intro** (bar -5), instrumental — opens the record below its own average energy — playing: bass, other
- `1:02` A · **steady** (bar 37), instrumental — holding a level — the groove, neither rising nor falling — playing: bass, vocals, other
- `2:18` A · **steady** (bar 88), sung — holding a level — the groove, neither rising nor falling — playing: drums, bass, vocals, other
- `2:32` A · **build** (bar 98), sung — energy and brightness climbing without a break — playing: drums, bass, vocals, other
- `3:25` B · **peak** (bar 133), sung — sits at the top of this record's range — playing: drums, vocals, other
- `3:46` C · **steady** (bar 148), sung — holding a level — the groove, neither rising nor falling — playing: drums, vocals, other
- `3:59` D · **lift** (bar 156), instrumental — a short rise that does not resolve — a fill or a transition, not a build — playing: drums, other
- `4:56` D · **breakdown** (bar 194), instrumental — energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning — playing: drums, vocals, other
- `6:23` D · **steady** (bar 253), instrumental — holding a level — the groove, neither rising nor falling — playing: drums, other

**Drops** at 0:37 (bar 20), 1:01 (bar 37). A drop is a moment, not a stretch.

**What is playing.** Separated into parts by a source-separation model, so each lane is the instrument it names.

- **drums:** the drum kit, separated from the mix
- **bass:** the bass part, separated from the mix
- **vocals:** the voice, separated from the mix
- **other:** everything else — synths, guitars, keys, strings

Measured from the YouTube master on 2026-08-29. Section labels describe how the energy
moves, not musical form. Anything we were not confident enough to state is omitted
rather than hedged.

## Listen

[Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/Bob%20Marley%20%26%20The%20Wailers%20No%20Woman%2C%20No%20Cry) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=IT8XvzIfi4U)

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