South Africa – Vol. 2
South Africa is currently awash in flags. The country’s multi-coloured banners are flying everywhere, especially on cars. Shops are decorated with flags from the more glamorous nations taking part in the World Cup — lots of Brazil, Spain, Argentina, France, Germany, Italy, England; not so much North Korea, Honduras and Slovakia. But especially South African flags, which I expect will continue to fly even when the host team’s tournament is over, most probably after the final group game against France on Tuesday.
South Africa clearly is proud to host the World Cup, to be in the world’s eye for a month. There are those who hope – secretly or flagrantly – that SA will fuck it up, but even if there should be problems, the country has prepared well in creating a vibe. People have been wearing football jerseys to work or school on Football Fridays, the unattractive din of the vuvuzela (the plastic trumpets) has been embraced and even practised by otherwise relatively sane people (and insanely hated by many TV viewers), and people who would ordinarily hate football are liable to shout at random the name of their favourite team. South Africa – at least that part of the population that isn’t hungry and freezing in inhumane conditions – is having a massive party.
South Africans are very hospitable. Some of our criminals might get violent with the occasional tourist, but generally visitors are safer than locals; and tourists are as likely to get mugged or pickpocketed in Rio, Venice or LA as they are in Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban. We like having guests from “exotic” places overseas (evidently not so much from other parts of Africa, as the xenophobic hate-gangs have made clear). The reason for that resides in the long international isolation under apartheid as well as the geographical distance from those countries with which South Africa would like to measure itself. The World Cup is our debutante ball. Please include us in the community of real nations.
Flag-waving über-patriotism generally tends to bother me. Flags are fun, but they can also be symbols (and weapons) of a dangerous nationalism. It is not a coincidence that the swastika was ubiquitous in Nazi Germany and that it often is the fascist, racist thug who has his flag tattooed on the neck. I find the USA’s obsession with and exaggerated reverence for the Stars and Stripes profoundly disturbing in the way it symbolises a sometimes particularly nasty national chauvinism. And yet, I welcome South Africa’s current flag-waving.
The flag is helping unite a deeply divided nation, much as the 1994 elections, the rugby World Cup wins in 1995 and 2007, and the African Cup of Nations win in 1996 did. Here, the flag is a symbol of what will be a fleeting national unity. But as a symbol of unity, however fleeting, it will serve as a permanent admonition that South Africans can be united. The World Cup may not bring South Africa all the promised material rewards (and we’ll need a collective shower to wash off the praetorian grime of our association with FIFA), and it will not solve all our problems. But as crucial contribution to the on-going project of nation-building, it will prove to be an inestimably valuable exercise.
With that out of the way, here are some more randomly selected South African songs.
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Elias & his Zig-Zag Jive Flutes – Ry Ry (1958).mp3
We previously met Elias — actually it’s Jack Lerole — in The Originals Vol. 31 as the composer and original performer of that staple of football grounds, Tom Hark. Ry Ry (which could be translated as “Go! Go!”) was the b-side of Elias & his Zig-Zag Jive Flutes’ 1958 hit, for which its writer received a pittance. Another pennywhistle number, it is spirited, if not quite as much as Tom Hark. Lerole was influential in the development of South African music, first in the kwela genre, then in mbaqanga. He abandoned the pennywhistle in the 1960s, as did the other giant of the pennywhistle, Spokes Mashiane. While Mashiane died young, Lerole was an early member of the next group.
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Mango Groove – Special Star (1989).mp3
Mango Groove – Dance Sum More (1989).mp3
Mango Groove were not the first multi-racial band in South Africa, nor the first to have hits with a fusion of white pop and African genres. Juluka (up next) and Hotline were the big pioneers in that regard. But were Juluka’s African roots were rural and traditional, Mango Groove incorporated the old urban kwela sounds of Sophiatown (discussed last week) and the townships. And the enjoyed much greater commercial success in South Africa. Jack Lerole left Mango Groove before they had their breakthrough. I think I’ve read once that it’s him growling on the infectious Dance Sum More. The superior Special Star, with Mduduzi Magwaza’s great pennywhistle solos and singer Claire Johnston’s gorgeous vocals, is dedicated to Spokes Mashiane.
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Juluka – Scatterlings Of Africa (1982).mp3
Johnny Clegg & Savuka – Asimbonanga (1987).mp3
Johnny Clegg had two groups. First there was Juluka, his band with Sipho Mchunu, whom he met in Johannesburg when they were teenagers (apparently one challenged the other to a guitar contest, and they became close friends thereafter). Clegg, who was born in Rochdale, England, founded Savuka after Mchunu decided to retire to farming in the mid-1980s. With Savuka, Clegg recorded the beautiful and haunting Asimbonanga, an anti-apartheid song for the then imprisoned Nelson Mandela, with its roll-call of assassinated political activists. Savuka also re-recorded Scatterlings Of Africa in 1987. I think I prefer that version with its more prominent flute , though the 1982 original with Juluka is equally a great. That version certainly is the South African classic.
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Henry Ate – Just (1996).mp3
One of the most popular songs I’ve posted on this blog is Pachelbel by Karma (get it HERE). I’m rather surprised about that. It’s an obscure album track by a South African band whose charismatic singer, Karma-Ann Swanepoel (not much of a rock & roll name), never made her deserved breakthrough as a solo singer. So it must be the exceptional lyrics that caused the track to be so popular. Karma was the alternative name, used for one album, of Henry Ate, a folk-rock group that was very popular in South Africa from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, despite the horribly punning name which they took from one of their songs. The beautiful song featured here is from their 1996 debut album; like Pachelbel, it’s the closing track. Karma is now living in Florida.
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District Six – Shine A Light (1994).mp3
A song from the wildly successful District Six – The Musical. I wrote about District Six last week; the musical tells the story of how a tight-knit community was uprooted and destroyed by the racist apartheid regime. The musical gave a voice to the immense pain felt by the displaced people, much as Richard Rive’s excellent novel Buckingham Palace, District Six did. I remember vividly the tears of the Muslim man in the row in front of me when I saw the musical in 1989. Shine A Light, one of several highlights, tells of a doomed interracial relationship; other songs speak of daily life in District Six and its characters, the humiliation of living under apartheid, the helplessness of being forcibly removed, the defiant hope of return. For such sad subject matter, much of the musical is very funny. In one song, characters tell of being chased away from amenities because these are reserved for whites. Then a gangster tells about a dream he had about dying and going to hell. The devil, however, sends him back, because “this place of mine is reserved for whites”.
The musical was written by the very successful, Olivier Award-winning team of David Kramer, a white Afrikaner, and Talip Petersen, who was born in District Six and was classified Coloured (mixed race) under apartheid. Petersen was murdered at his home in December 2006. His wife Najwa was convicted of conspiracy to murder him. The title of the film District 9, with its theme of forced removals, was obviously inspired by District Six.
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Jonathan Butler – Sing Me Your Love Song (1990).mp3
For a country with such a wealth of talent, South Africa has produced relatively few international stars. One who made it was Jonathan Butler, a guitarist who is active mostly in the field of jazz-fusion but had chart success with the soul track Lies on the Jive label (founded by Durban-schooled Mutt Lange). Butler comes from Cape Town (Irish readers will be amused to learn he grew up in a suburb called Athlone), and his large, musical family has been involved in many bands on the city’s live jazz circuit. Occasionally, Butler comes home and records with old friends, as he did with the great Tony Schilder. A collaboration of them will feature later in this series. Sing Me Your Love Song was released in late 1990 on the aptly titled Heal Our Land LP; with its gentle African vibe it appealed to a country that was blinkingly emerging from apartheid.
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Rabbitt – Charlie (1975).mp3
While the rest of the world had the Bay City Rollers, South Africa had Rabbitt, whose biggest hits were Charlie and a decent cover of Jethro Tull’s Locomotive Breath. And when Leslie McKeown bailed the sinking ship BCR, the renamed Rollers replaced him with Rabbitt singer Duncan Fauré. But it would be unjust to regard Rabbitt as teenybopper merchants. They were serious musicians. After his three albums with the Rollers, Fauré, Rabbit’s main songwriter, turned to more songwriting and producing, but bandmate Trevor Rabin made the greater impact, first as a member of Yes — we may blame him for Owner Of The Lonely Heart — and then as the writer of many scores of hit movies. US sports fans will recognise his Titans Spirit from Remember the Titans.
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Yvonne Chaka Chaka – Umqobothi (1986).mp3
Arguably South Africa’s most popular female singers were Miriam Makeba and Brenda Fassie, one a dignified vocalist and the other lively pop star. Yvonne Chaka Chaka, whose real name is Yvonne Machaka, combines both qualities, and is one of South Africa’s foremost musical artists. Makeba herself described her as “my baby”. Yvonne is an astute woman: her LPs are released on her own label, she is a successful business woman, an activist in areas such as women’s and children’s rights activist and malaria, and an advocate in public administration. Reportedly she teaches adult literacy part-time. My favourite Yvonne Chaka Chaka song, Makoti, appeared on my second Africa mix. This is her massive 1986 hit which featured in the opening of the film Hotel Rwanda. Umqombothi is a home-brewed Xhosa beer, made of sorghum, corn and yeast. The official beer of the World Cup in South Africa, however, is the American pisswater Budweiser.
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I am recycling this incredibly moving song from last year. It seems to have been very popular indeed, even though it was a mere album track from an album that was not a big hit even in Karma-Ann Swanepoel’s home country, South Africa. Karma has found someone with whom to connect on an intimate level. As the alert reader might have predicted, there is something that makes this love impossible. They have been talking a lot, always skirting around their true feelings: “So we’ll talk every now and then about our day-to-day, never saying the things we both planned to say.”
The song reflects the experiences of two female friends who are presently conversing. One has an affair with a married man who promises to leave his wife and join her in California. The other is in a difficult marriage – it seems she married her husband only because she felt her “time was running out”. But now that she is pregnant, she seems to love him (or so she says). “But now you love him and your baby; at last you are complete. But he’s distant and you found him on the phone, pleading, saying: ‘Baby, I love you, and I’ll leave her and I’m coming out to California”. Ooops! Obviously the husband is in love with the first woman, who loves him too. And the geometry of the relationships will be further complicated when the love triangle turns into a square soon. Woman #1 realises what will happen: “And your husband will never leave you. He will never leave you for me.” An impossible love for at least two people here, beautifully dramatised by the gorgeous Jenny Lewis.
The obstacle of the age gap was explored by Gary Puckett in his anthem to narrowly but judiciously avoided statutory rape. We don’t know how old Gary was vis-a-vis the young girl, but in Roberta Flack’s lovely song from her 1969 debut album, First Take, the relationship is between two consenting adults. The age difference here seems to be too vast to reconcile. I have difficulty buying into that: she is 21, he is 34. That’s just 13 years (and the 21-year-old girl is probably more mature than the guy). But, as Roberta tells it, “now I find according to society that our ages, they must keep us apart.” She rightly believes that the age difference is immaterial when the two of them are so much in love, “a love too strong for gossip to kill”. But gossip seems to be winning; her man unreasonably a hostage to parochial prejudices. So Roberta has to put an ultimatum to him: “What will it be – our ages or our hearts?”
The 1978 original of Whitney Houston’s 1985 hit by the one-time singer of the 5th Dimension. It is, of course, another adultery song (which I think is used better here than in the cheating songs instalment). Naturally, the arrangement of clandestinely banging a married man is not ideal, but she really seems to love him, and, one suspects, he really loves her too, believing that this in itself would justify ending his marriage. “You used to tell me we’d run away together. Love gives you the right to be free.” But she knows that he doesn’t really believe this to be true, that he cannot sacrifice his marital obligation on the altar of love. “You said be patient, just wait a little longer – but that’s just an old fantasy.” So, is he a cheating cad who is just using Marilyn? Or is he in a desperate situation in which at least two – and if his wife finds out possibly three – hearts are broken?
Ouch, she fell hard – “You make me feel like a lilting girl. What do you do to me?” – but is trapped in another relationship. “Now what am I supposed to do when I want you in my world? How can I want you for myself when I’m already someone’s girl?” For Erykah, extra-curricular activity, which her object of desire seems to be proposing, is not an option: “I know I’m a lot of woman, but not enough to divide the pie.” So it won’t happen; they cannot be together, ever. Forever ever? Well, the idea of brutal finality might be just a little too much for Erykah to bear, so she makes a deal: they’ll be together in the next lifetime. “I guess I’ll see you next lifetime. I’m going to look for you.” Which must bring modest comfort to the atheist lover.
Here we have two people who are in love, but geographical distance is coming between them. “I find the map and draw a straight line over rivers, farms, and state lines; the distance from A to where you’d be…” He and she, for it is a duet with Loudon’s daughter (ergo Rufus’ sister), are feeling depressed about it all. “I’m miles from where you are, I lay down on the cold ground. I pray that something picks me up, and sets me down in your warm arms.” Unlike many others in the impossible love predicament, our two friends may well activate their love fully when they do get together. And in their imagination, they already are: “After I have travelled so far, we’d set the fire to the third bar. We’d share each other like an island until exhausted close our eyelids.” Can the promise of sweaty sex compensate for the agony of separation?
As the title suggests, Morrissey and his pal’s girlfriend are in a car, but instead of dreaming about double-decker busses, Morrissey is engaged in a conversation punctuated by directions. It turns out that she is not really happy with Morrissey’s pal. “So how did I end up so deeply involved in the very existence I planned on avoiding?” Morrissey has no answer, for he can’t run his mate down in a quest for this girl. She instructs him to drive on, and he does. There is an obvious attraction. Eventually they get to her place. Will she invite him up for “a cup of coffee”? Would he accept such a suggestion? In the event, she doesn’t though she probably was tempted to, and with what seems like profound regret, Morrissey notes: “I’m parking outside her home. And we’re shaking hands ‘Goodnight’, so politely.”
I’ll cheat and use the same text as I did last year. Welsh songbird Jem usually does the electronica thing, but here she is in ballad mode. And what a sad ballad it is, continuing the close-but-not-close-enough riff of Pachelbel. “I know that we can’t be together, but I just like to dream. It’s so strange the way our paths have crossed, how we were brought together.” The wonder of love desperately seeks physical expression, but even though she’d “love to spend the night”, she “can’t pay the price”, even if they are “so close to giving in”. The realisation arrives: “I know there’s no such thing as painless love…we can never win.” And still, in the next line Jem reiterates just how giddy this impossible love makes her — it makes her “flying high”.
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