Stir It Up

"Stir It Up" is a song composed by Bob Marley in 1967. On Nash's I Can See Clearly Now album, he used members of The Wailers and recorded several Marley songs: "Stir It Up", the follow-up single, "Comma Comma", "Guava Jelly", and the Nash / Marley co-written ballad, "You Poured Sugar on Me". The track "(It Was) So Nice While It Lasted" received radio play.

The Wailers performed the song on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1973 during their first trip to the UK.^[1]

"Stir It Up" was Marley's first successful song outside Jamaica. Another song written by Bob Marley, "I Shot The Sheriff", was made a hit by Eric Clapton on the album 461 Ocean Boulevard, July 1974. Marley's first "own" international hit, "No Woman No Cry", was released on the Bob Marley and the Wailers album Live!, December 1975.

The Black Sorrows' version

In September 1993, Australian band The Black Sorrows released a version of the song. It became a hit, peaking at number 20 in New Zealand, the band's highest charting single in that territory. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1994, Joe Camilleri was nominated for Producer of the Year for his work on this song, losing out to Tony Cohen.

Track listing

CD single (Columbia 660 105-2)

1. "Stir It Up" – 3:34
2. "Ain't Love the Strangest Thing" (acoustic) – 4:10
3. "Come On, Come On" (acoustic) – 2:50

Charts

Other cover versions

• In 1991, the song was covered by Dread Zeppelin on their second album 5,000,000.
• In 1993, the song was covered by Haddaway on his debut album Haddaway.
• In 1998, Gilberto Gil's live cover appeared on his Grammy Award-winning album Quanta Live^[5]

References