Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Many Sixties soul giants routinely performed religious numbers alongside the love and heartbreak songs that comprised the majority of their repertoire. It was relatively rare, however, for a spiritual track to cross over to not only large-scale commercial success, but also to achieve vast symbolic and cultural significance.Explaining the song’s central metaphor, Mayfield said that “the train is somewhat of a symbol of God Himself coming to take on and bring all the people who have gotten themselves together and may possibly be able to venture over to the other side of the world”. It was little surprise that many Black churches in his Chicago hometown soon began making use of it in their services, with some even adding it to their hymn sheets.Yet “People Get Ready” resonated far beyond religious circles. It was a hit, going top 20 in the Billboard pop chart and reaching number three in their R&B listing. More significantly, it quickly attracted the attention of the Baptist church minister and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King.The song’s central message of believers journeying to the promised land translated easily to the struggle to create a more equitable society. Realising this, King regularly played it before his speeches and to inspire his followers on his vast protest marches. He even declared “People Get Ready” to be “the unofficial anthem of the civil rights movement”.A Mayfield fan, Marley had, in 1965, reacted to “People Get Ready” by writing a light ska tune, “One Love”, which extensively quoted its lyrics. It also questioned them: where Mayfield had declared there to be “no room” on his train for the “hopeless sinner”, Marley wondered whether they might be forgiven: “Is there a place for the hopeless sinner?” His tribute went largely unnoticed until 1977. With Jamaica riven by political violence, Marley revisited the song, renaming it “One Love/People Get Ready” and re-releasing it on his Exodus album. It then formed a centrepiece of his legendary One Love Peace Concert in Kingston in 1978, where he joined the hands of Jamaica’s warring political leaders.Curtis Mayfield’s life was to end in tragedy. Paralysed by a lighting rig falling on him at an outdoor New York show in 1990, he died, of complications from diabetes, nine years later, aged just 57. Yet this peerless, honey-voiced hymning of a divine journey will forever loom large in his musical legacy.Let us know your memories of ‘People Get Ready’ in the comments section belowThe paperback edition of ‘The Life of a Song: The stories behind 100 of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by ChambersMusic credits: Universal; Warner; Atlantic; Hi; Columbia; Capitol; Sony; Mercury
