As might be expected, the Russian war on Ukraine has produced lots of refugees — more than 1 million so far, according to the United Nations, about 2% of the country’s population. Officials expect that as many as 4 million people eventually will leave, with another 3 million displaced within the country. Most European Union countries have activated refugee policies that waive the normal restrictions on visas and passports to help cope.
Ukraine is a relatively poor nation, and a lot of those fleeing are doing so on foot. More than half have gone to neighboring Poland, continuing an exodus of more than 1 million Ukrainians who have emigrated there since Russian annexed Crimea in 2014, causing days-long queues of refugees waiting in freezing weather. Just for perspective, recall that one of the reasons for Brexit’s popularity was the more than 1 million Poles who were living in England, a number that has dropped to about 700,000 since 2017.
Bob Marley was writing about a spiritual rather than a physical exodus on his 1977 LP — he titled the album before he had written the song. But physical movement was involved — Marley composed it shortly after leaving Jamaica for London after an attempt on his life in December 1976.
For most American music fans, this is the sound of reggae — the title track and all of side 2 make up half of his multi-platinum greatest hits album, “Legend” — but the relative prominence of its blues and funk influences departed from the prevailing sound in Jamaica at the time.
“Exodus” was Marley’s first single to get prominent airplay on US Black-oriented radio, helping it to No. 19 on the R&B chart. It was a bigger hit in the UK, where it reached No. 14 on the singles chart. Most “best album” lists include it, and Time magazine even named it the best album of the entire 20th century.
