Life in 10 tracks #1: The Fugees — No Woman No Cry

Life’s experiences good and bad shape your future

I can just about remember when Bob Marley passed away in 1981, and even as a four year old I can vaguely recall No Woman No Cry playing all the time.

Possibly heresy, but I actually love The Fugees version more, both its sound and also its mood because I don’t associate it with mourning.

The reason for it being my first track of my ten is actually its sentiments, which as I’ve got older I have realised are more and more worth heeding. The following line is the one that sticks with me:

In this great future, you can’t forget your past, so dry your tears, I say.

I realise now I’m in my fifth decade I’ve wasted too much time lamenting bad times past, and with age, I’ve learned that both our positive and negative experiences shape who we are once the pain subsides.

If I could go back and talk to the young me — for example the me of twelve years old and going through a difficult transition to a new school — I think this is how my advice would start.

It might not help in the short term, but knowing this is a process, that there can be a brighter future and all experience is helping shape it I think might just have been a useful rope to cling to.