Bob Marley and the Wailers wrote it, but Eric Clapton had the hit with it...and we have yet to truly understand what Sheriff Brown had against Bob.
The long-standing nature of the feud sung about in "I Shot the Sheriff" is right there in the first verse:
Sheriff John Brown always hated me
For what I don't know
Every time that I plant a seed
He said, "Kill it before it grows."
Here's my twisted theory: The singer got the sheriff's daughter pregnant and the sheriff demanded that his daughter have an abortion.
There's no way to know whether the pregnancy was terminated, but apparently, the singer had had enough of the whole situation and decided to claim his freedom and leave town...which the sheriff, for some reason, opposed...and it all ended badly:
Freedom came my way one day
And I started out of town
All of a sudden I see sheriff John Brown
Aiming to shoot me down
So I shot, I shot him down
Still no word on who shot the deputy or why.
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