No woman no cry

I thought I knew what this meant: with no woman around, you won't be sad. Or, a lament for the miseries of love. Perhaps you won't be joyous either, but it will reduce the depths. That's how I've interpreted it for years; decades.

However, looking at the lyrics, it is rendered as "no, woman, no cry" - which changes it to an instruction to a woman: don't cry.

Others have come up with more creative ways of misunderstanding: that "There is no woman who does not cry". That's from a non-native speaker, so it is unnatural, but possible. And yet another: "I always thought it meant that he had 'no woman' but he wasn't going to cry about it anymore".

But really that's all beside the point; the ambiguity is pleasing but the real meaning is in:

Said, said, said, I remember when-a we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
And then Georgie would make the fire lights
As it was logwood burnin' through the nights
Then we would cook cornmeal porridge
Of which I'll share with you
My feet is my only carriage
So I've got to push on through

That calls to mind some of my father's stories of Jamaica. I wish I'd paid more attention. I wish I could ask him again.