Peter Tosh’s “Burial” was not meant for Bob Marley.

Over the years many have suggested that Peter Tosh’s song “Burial” in which he sings, “Them want I them want I, to come a dem funeral…” was meant for Bob Marley. Of course Peter Tosh did not attend Bob Marley’s funeral and this could be the primary reason people assumed the song was meant for Bob.

There are also other parts of the song where Tosh sings, “It’s a big disgrace, how you rob up the place”, and we now know that the Barrett Brothers were robbed of their contributions to all the Bob Marley and the Wailers albums. Tosh continued on in the song, “You rob everything you can find, you even rob the blind.” The Barrett Brothers were not literally blind but we know they could not read, so they were in fact blind to the contract that they got tricked into signing.

The truth about “Burial”, however, is that the song was composed by Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer way back in 1968 when Peter, Bob and Bunny were still good friends, way before Chris Whitewell destroyed the crew, so there is no way the song was taking aim at Bob. In fact the song was on Peter Tosh’s album “Legalize It” which was released in 1976, five years before Bob completed his earthly journey.

Maybe after Bob’s passing and Tosh not attending the funeral, radio disc jockeys and sound system selectors started playing the song more and this led fans to believe it was meant for Bob. Add to that, the fact that some disillusioned Marley fans like to cast Peter in a bad light, they used this opportunity to further their crazy notion that Tosh was jealous of Bob.
Maybe Peter Tosh was just the prophet who didn’t reap the profit.

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