Ode to Beres Hammond

Give Thanks, Beres Hammond

How “Putting Up Resistance” Taught Me About Love, Sacrifice and Resilience

We often talk about music as entertainment. We remember the songs we danced to, the ones that soundtracked first loves, heartbreaks and celebrations. But some songs do something quieter and more lasting. They prepare us for life.

One of those songs, for me, is Beres Hammond’s “Putting Up Resistance.”

I grew up in Montego Bay in the 1980s in a house where music mattered. My mother adored Beres. His albums sat in a place of honour alongside Air Supply, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel and Sam Cooke—on vinyl and cassette. “Putting Up Resistance” became part of the soundtrack of my childhood.

What still strikes me is that, unlike so many songs we only grow into as adults, this one spoke to me right away. The message wasn’t beyond a child’s understanding. It made sense because I was already watching it unfold every day.

My father would leave home at three or four in the morning, driving deep into the Jamaican countryside to buy produce and goods before the rest of us had opened our eyes. He was supplying hotels and customers, working tirelessly to build a business and create opportunities for his family that he himself had never had.

As a child, I missed him when he was gone.

Then I heard Beres sing about wanting to stay home with his family while recognising that staying home would not make things right. Those words helped me understand my father’s sacrifice. They taught me that love is not always measured by the hours spent at home. Sometimes love looks like leaving before dawn so your children can have a better life.

That was the first lesson.

The second proved even more enduring.

The song acknowledges something every Jamaican knows but few songs express so plainly: there are times when it feels as though unseen forces continually frustrate honest effort. Bureaucracy, economic hardship, disappointment and circumstance can create the sense that the odds are permanently tilted against ordinary people.

Yet the brilliance of “Putting Up Resistance” is that it refuses to stop there. It does not deny hardship. It does not pretend the system is always fair. Instead, it insists that surrender is not the answer.

Those words have echoed through every stage of my adult life.

As a journalist, community activist, husband and father, I have encountered enough setbacks to become cynical. There have been moments when it would have been easy to conclude that nothing changes, that hard work is futile, that integrity is for fools. Every time those thoughts crept in, I remembered the spirit of that song.

It taught me something invaluable: I could recognise injustice without allowing it to poison my character. I could acknowledge the difficulties of the Jamaican condition without becoming bitter about them. I could keep believing that honest effort still matters.

That is no small gift.

We celebrate artists for their awards, chart success and sold-out concerts. We speak less often about the quiet ways they shape the moral imagination of a nation. Looking back, I realise that while my father showed me what perseverance looked like, Beres Hammond gave me the language to understand it. He put melody to discipline. He gave rhythm to resilience. He transformed the daily struggle of ordinary Jamaicans into something dignified rather than despairing.

I suspect I am not alone. There must be thousands of Jamaicans who unknowingly carried lessons from his music into adulthood. Songs like “Putting Up Resistance” were more than recordings. They were companions. They reminded us that endurance is not weakness, that perseverance is not naïveté, and that hope is itself an act of resistance.

So this is simply an expression of gratitude.

Thank you, Mister Hammond, for reminding a young Jamaican boy that life would be difficult without convincing him it was hopeless. Thank you for helping me understand my father’s sacrifices while he was still making them. And thank you for proving that sometimes the greatest gift an artist can give is not escape from reality, but the courage to face it.