War is the Bob Marley song whose lyrics draw on a speech by Haile Selassie. The song appeared on Bob Marley and the Wailers’ 1976 album Rastaman Vibration and turns a political address into a forceful reggae anthem.
The lyrics are derived almost entirely from Haile Selassie I’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 4 October 1963. The Ethiopian emperor argued that peace could not truly exist while racism, unequal citizenship and colonial oppression remained. Marley adapted the speech’s language, adding repeated cries of “war” and setting the words to a spare, insistent rhythm.
Listeners sometimes assume Marley wrote every word himself, but the song’s text is chiefly Selassie’s. The recording was credited to Carlton Barrett and Allan “Skill” Cole, while Marley’s arrangement and performance made the passage internationally famous. War became closely associated with Rastafari, which revered Haile Selassie as a central spiritual figure.