The Most Contorted Lyrics in a Pop Song

This is one of these postings to which you quite legitimately say 'why did he suddenly start going on about that'. Well, the whole point of this blog was to extract the odd things that had been floating around in my brain and get them out of my system like the tablets of lead with curses or prayers that Romans would throw into sacred pools. Some of these things have been in my head only a short time and some, like today's have been there for many years.

I was driving across southern Hampshire yesterday lunchtime tuned to a local radio station and they had a feature in which they play three songs in a row by the same group or artist. The performers and the tunes selected are picked by listeners. Yesterday someone selected Toto as one member was performing locally this week. Someone once described the band to me as a 'super-group', i.e. not a spectactularly successful band but one that was made up of performers who had established careers of their own or in other groups. Toto was formed in 1977 of session musicians and peaked in success in the 1980s before breaking up in 2008. At various times there were 12 official band members and a further 27 musicians and vocalists performed with them at various times on tour. They performed what has been termed 'adult-orientated rock' and sometimes 'soft rock' or even 'progressive rock' though I imagine if they did the latter that must appear on their albums rather than their successful singles. The three singles selected yesterday were their most successful, certainly in the UK: 'Hold the Line' (1978), 'Rosanna' (1982) and 'Africa' (1982).

Now, it is about that third single, 'Africa' that I want to comment. I was reminded of it recently through working with a white and a mixed-race South African who spoke of their affinity for Africa, when as someone who had been a member of the Anti-Apartheid Movement I found and still do find, it difficult to feel that white people in Africa are at all right, or at best they should feel themselves at best guests and in most cases intruders. I was angered by a white composer of (appalling) Classical music I heard speaking some years ago who talked about how him growing up in Africa had influenced his music. I felt he was stealing from the continent in the way colonists stole people and resources. I was reminded of this too watching the movie 'The Saint' (2003) which is one I enjoy thoroughly, but Val Kilmer playing Simon Templar disguises himself as a white South African (apparently a resident of Cape Town), Thomas More in order to seduce Dr. Emma Russell (played by Elizabeth Shue) he refers to his home in Africa.


Anyway, because of those references and how my odd mind works the song was in my thinking even before I heard it yesterday. It reached Number 1 in the USA in February 1983 but had almost been left off their album imaginatively called 'Toto IV' in 1982 because band members felt it was out of step with other things they were producing. Apparently they were very tired of it by the time it was put on the album. It does seem like an overchewed piece all round. I have now found out that the fact that I cringe every time I hear it is something that I share with other people as it was voted containing the 6th worst set of lyrics in a BBC poll a few years ago.

The music itself is fine. It is a typical rock arrangement with references as the performers have noted, to the kind of music used in documentaries about Africa. The key problem which makes me shudder whenever the tune comes on is the lyrics. What David Paich and Jeff Porcaro were thinking when they wrote the lyrics I am not sure. It was inspired by Paich's reflections on someone who had never visited Africa envisaging it. However, the 'story' with the reference of the young man wandering around seeking inspiration seems to be about someone in Africa, awaiting a woman coming on an aeroplane. Why they had to jam so much into a number of the lines is beyond me, it is almost comical how they try to stretch the words across the music and stunning that such a song could be so successful.
The particularly bad bits are: 'The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation' which is allowed as long in the song as the preceding line; 'She's coming in: twelve thiry flight'. Further in the same verse you get 'I stopped and old man on the way' which is fine, but the next line is twice the length squeezed painfully into the space: 'Hoping to find some long forgotten words or ancient melodies', something like 'Hoping to some rare melody' would have been more than enough.

In the second verse overlong lyrics ruin the impact of the song which at other times is punchy. 'The wild dogs cry out in the night' that is fine but when followed up by 'As they grow restless longing for some solitary company' it weakens it entirely. Something along the lines of 'Remind me of how I am solitary'. I am not a lyricist, but trying to squeeze the far longer line in is painful. What is 'solitary company' anyway? You did not need the additional two or three syllables of the contradictory word, there is enough in the line already. Then comes the piece de resistance the line which received the high ranking in the BBC poll. 'I know that I must do what's right' - yes, great, nice and forceful, decisive the kind of thing you need in a rock song, but then it is doused by the poll-rated lyric: 'Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti'. Now why do you need Olympus in there? Below are photos of the two mountains. Yes, they have snow on top and they are mountains, but that is where the similarity ends. I imagine there should be some punctuation in the lyrics otherwise it is entirely wrong as Olympus does not rise above the Serengeti. Using Kilimanjaro was always going to be difficult let alone when you have Serengeti in the line. Keep it simple 'As sure as the Sun rises over Serengeti' would have been more than enough or 'As sure as Kilimajaro rises into the sky'.

I can understand why it needed a lot of production just to stop the song breaking down. Steve Lukather, one of the leading members of Toto, said in 2003 that 'I didn't think it was any good' and he was right, though clearly the record-buying public disagree. I have been accused of paying too much attention to lyrics and it seems that many people pay little attention to anything beyond the chorus of a song. I was told yesterday by someone that they had not known that the song 'All Together Now' (1990) by The Farm contained any references to the First World War. This is despite the lyrics saying: 'Remember boy that your forefathers died/ Lost in millions for a country's pride/ But they never mention the trenches of Belgium/ When they stopped fighting and they were one/ A spirit stronger than war was at work that night/ December 1914 cold, clear and bright/ Countries' borders were right out of sight/ When they joined together and decided not to fight' which cannot be mistaken for anything else.

I suppose Toto's example of the most contorted pop lyrics in existence is more about the force of record companies and an undiscerning consuming public making something that sounds as if it was written by an over-eager 13 year old back from visiting his grandparents in Johannesburg into a best-selling record still being played on prime-time radio 27 years after it was released. It has not got to the stage as it has with some pop songs that I loathe them so much that I will turn them off when they come on, mainly because I wait for some different version to come on with the vocalist going 'I can't sing this, let's try something a bit more rational' and but always painfully stretching the words over the necessary number of bars so that the song does not entirely collapse.

The Olympics and Dictatorships

The modern Olympics started in 1896 and so far, since then have been held only twice in non-democratic countries:

1896- Athens
1900- Paris
1904- St. Louis
1908- London
1912- Stockholm
1920- Antwerp
1924- Paris
1928- Amsterdam
1932- Los Angeles
1936- Berlin
1948- London
1952- Helsinki
1956- Melbourne
1960- Rome
1964- Tokyo
1968- Mexico City
1972- Munich
1976- Montreal
1980- Moscow
1984- Los Angeles
1988- Seoul
1992- Barcelona
1996- Atlanta
2000- Sydney
2004- Athens
2008- Beijing
2012- London

Now you could argue about Seoul in South Korea in 1988 could count as it had only had had democratic elections restored in 1987. To some extent this shows the power of the Olympics. In 1980 the USA and some British teams boycotted the Moscow Olympics over the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan the previous year at the height of the so-called Second Cold War. The USSR at the time was clearly a one-party dictatorship, but of course the Olympics are planned well in advance as you can see from the list regarding London and back in the mid-1970s when the location had been established it had seemed that the Cold War had been thawing with detente and Ostpolitik. The other, probably more (in)famous Olympics were those held in Berlin in 1936 at the height of the Nazi regime. These had been allocated to Germany in 1931, two years before Hitler came to power. Adolf Hitler attended the games but was humiliated by the success of the Black US athlete Jesse Owens who won four gold medals seemingly disproving Hitler's beliefs in the superiority of Whites. Hitler left so that he did not have to present the medals to Owens. The Olympics for both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were about showing the best of the country to the democratic media and trying to demonstrate that they were people that could be done business with despite all the human rights abuses going on behind the scenes. China is using them in the same way. Hitler released a number of political prisoners before the games, only to have them re-arrested afterwards. China, as I have noted, is busily doing the opposite, seemingly fearful that dissidents will have freer access to outside media during the Olympic period.

The reaction of democratic countries to the Olympics hosted by dictatorships has varied. In 1936 whilst there were no national boycotts of the Olympics though Barcelona hosted the so-called People’s Olympic Games (Olimpiada Popular) in July 1936, the week before the official one in Berlin, and 22 nations signed up to it. It particularly attracted competitors from workers' sports clubs which were common at the time. The Spanish Government was a centre-left Popular Front and wanted to provide an alternative to the games in Berlin which were emblazoned with Nazi insignia. Unfortunately the coup which triggered the Spanish Civil War broke out before all the competitors had arrived and these alternative games had to be abandoned.

In 1980 the USA still under Jimmy Carter boycotted the Moscow Olympics in protest at the invasion of Afghanistan. Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Norway, South Korea, West Germany and many others barred their athletes from attending. The UK, France and Greece supported the boycott but allowed their athletes to make up their own minds and most from the UK went (though notably none of the horse jumpers); four athletes from New Zealand defied their country's boycott to attend. There were the so-called Olympic Boycott Games in Philadelphia. For the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics there was rather a tit-for-tat reaction and the USSR and 14 Communist states bar Romania which was pursuing an independent line, did not attend. The Soviets blamed anti-Soviet propaganda in the USA, which had actually been very prevalent in the previous three years since Ronald Reagan had come to power in 1981 and started talking about the 'evil empire'. The Soviets put on the so-called Friendship Games in Moscow. Since these tense days of the late Cold War things have settled down.

Political issues have not been confined to tension between states. The one incident that the media is currently pointing to is the Black Power salute given by US sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. They wore black gloves and black socks rather than shoes to reference Black poverty in the USA. This was at a time of sharp battles in US society over civil rights for Blacks. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, the Palestinian terrorist organisation, Black September shot dead eleven members of the Israeli team and one West German police officer. There intention had been to draw the world's attention to the Palestinian situation in Israel and surrounding countries.

Boycotting of sports activities in apartheid South Africa began in 1956 and stepped up from 1963 onwards as more sports bodies came on board. South Africa was barred from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and thrown out of the IOC the Olympic organising body in 1970. Some bodies took more persuading, but there was an increase in the face of public protests through the 1970s, of those sports cutting ties to South Africa. These boycotts were not lifted until the disassembling of the apartheid system in 1991. Thus, despite people constantly saying that sport and politics should be separate in fact they often inter-mingle.

So, what is the response to China. It has not actually invaded anywhere since 1979 invasion of Vietnam. The Chinese have, however, occupied Tibet since 1951 and surely this is as worthy of protest as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a country they left in 1989 whereas China remains in Tibet. The number of Chinese political prisoners is uncertain but over 800,000 people were arrested in 2004 alone for crimes that threatened the state. It is likely that millions of people in the country are held for what are called 'crimes of conscience', some on religious grounds, others for political reasons including pro-democracy and pro-human rights protests. China has over 700 prisons and other prisoners are detained, as they used to be in the USSR in psychiatric institutions. Torture and the death penalty are commonly used in China. As we know from Tianamen Square in 1989, the Chinese government will suppress pro-democracy movements brutally. We only hear about a fraction of protests in China and it is estimated there were over 10,000 local protests in China last year, not all aimed at political change, but at altering economic and environmental aspects too. So why is not the USA boycotting the 2008 Olympics? Why have British athletes had to sign a document saying they will make no comments on China's human rights record? South Africa in the 1970s and the USSR in the 1980s were weak economically whereas China is rapidly becoming the dominant economy in the world. Germany in 1936 was seen as strong and a bastion against the threat of Communism, so like China today, it was fine to go there. Attending the Olympics in China gives credibility to the dictatorship which persecutes millions of its people. Ordinary people will think, 'well if all those athletes are going it must be an alright country'. This is what China wants.

So, you can conclude, yes the Olympics and politics have nothing to do with each other, what it is about is the Olympics and money, as money and trade deals suppress any qualms about the kind of society that generates them. Come on athletes, recognise that China's policies are an anathema to the Olympic spirit: there is no equality for ethnic groups there and there is no opprtunity for any athlete to succeed who does not bow down before the will of the Chinese Communist Party. Boycott Beijing 2008.

Removing One 'Wrong' Does Not Automatically Put A 'Right' in its Place

It is always interesting listening to apologists of something who know that general consensus about what they are saying will be hostile so they wrap up their statements in conciliatory phrases especially if they are eating in your house at the time, but then with rather veiled statements proceed to make outrageous statements. In the UK it is not the done thing to say to them 'your views are entirely offensive stop', society requires you smile and admit they have a point. I would support this view, because I heartily support the view that whilst I may disagree with someone they have the right to express any views they choose and if I tried to prevent them then I would be behaving as badly as the views they outline. As noted in a recent post, some will see that as a weakness of the liberal humanist approach, but in fact in line with a comment I saw in a newspaper recently referring to the BNP (British National Party the main UK fascist party) 'given them enough string [i.e. not even rope] and they will hang themselves' as typically bigots show themselves up as stupid and hateful far better themselves that we could ever hope to do.

Now, in this context, I had a white former South African woman in my house last week. She is 28 so was born in 1980 when apartheid was in place but still only a teenager when it finally ended in 1994. Like people interested in the country she has seen the difficulties with crime, violence, poverty and AIDS that have plagued it since and she now argues that many Blacks in South Africa would prefer a return to the apartheid system because it at least had stability. To some degree that is a rather rosy view of the 'stability' of South Africa especially in the 1970s and 1980s with its economy suffering spiralling inflation and heavily armed police riding around beating and shooting people and internicine murders between different Black factions. It is clear that many Whites who grew up during the period were oblivious to the severity of events going on. They say the British had exaggerated information, but it is clear that having a free press we did not have to have exaggerated reports to see how bad the situation was. South Africa had no television broadcasts before 1977 to help keep people in ignorance and even then news was heavily censored. The one incident that they are most suprised to hear about the attack of the extreme AWB against the ANC conference in 1990 which almost triggered a civil war.

Apartheid South Africa was a society divided on racial grounds denying people access to areas and facilities such as schools and hopsitals based on their racial categorisation, something that had only otherwise been seen in Nazi Germany, hardly a good role model. The woman knew I had been in the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which for liberals in the UK was almost assumed and I recognise now I could have been much more active than I was. Anyway, she said to me, had I been to South Africa and I said no (partly because flights there are beyond my income) but I also said because I knew how violent and crime-ridden the country was. She ridiculed me saying well, surely those were the people in control that I had campaigned to liberate. Of course that is a foolish statement but you can see why Whites in South Africa see a direct connection between the end of apartheid and the rise on social problems. This, however, is a very simplistic view and is similar to the difficulties in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is right to campaign against dictatorships but you cannot assume that simply removing them will create peace and democracy; that is actually the harder job than removing the dictatorship and yet it is the one people pay least attention to.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement campaigned not to create a South Africa which was crime-ridden and violent, it aimed for a state which did not have a divisive social and political structure and gave the majority a voice but in the context of freedom for all people no matter what their ethnic background. It also gave people the freedom to be criminals and to be violent in a way that they have that freedom (and use it) in the UK, USA, France and so on. There are some points to note. Democracy does not suddenly manufacture a feasible economy. As in the USSR before its collapse, a distorted economy of the kind which is prevalent in Africa and was also in the Communist state is going to leave certain people in poverty to an even greater extent than they are in the democracies, because the authoritarian state can restrict their movement to find work and to protest against conditions in a way democracies cannot do. So in Russia and South Africa you still have the weak economy from before but people can take action to improve their situation and the easiest way is always to commit a crime. In addition creating democracy does not overnight erase social inequalities and whilst Blacks and Coloureds are now in a position to become prosperous in South Africa, the richest people there are still White as they were in previous decades. This will also take time to change and the Mugabe model in Zimbabwe has proven itself to be the wrong way to go about it.

Democracy itself (let alone a fair society and despite many Americans' views the two are not necessarily linked) takes a long time to establish. In the UK it took centuries and as yet we are still not a truly democratic state as half of our parliament is unelected. In France it took centuries and a bloody revolution. In Germany it took two world wars and the Nazi regime before enduring democracy was established. The USA had a colonial war, a vast civil war, rioting and unrest to even establish its current form of democracy, again taking centuries. So why does anyone think that democracy can really truly be established in South Africa, Russia (which had never even tried democracy before the 1990s), Iraq, Afghanistan in the space of a few years and peacefully, when the bulk of the lauded democracies had to go through decades and decades of bloodshed to get to often quite imperfect democracy now.

It is a human tragedy that when dictatorships end it takes so long to establish some degree of stability, even to reduce the 'normality' of violence to an extent when it becomes exceptional rather than taken for granted. However, this is no excuse to say, well as democracy is so violent and unstable in the first few decades then we should not bother and stick with authoritarian regimes instead. This is like saying a woman should not let the baby out of her womb simply because it is going to be a painful process often needing lots of input from doctors and nurses. When things change you need to look forward. No-one fights to help criminals prosper, they fight for all the ordinary people, the bulk of South Africans and Iraqis who simply want to be able to go work in the morning, feed their families, come home, eat and go to sleep; to not be stopped and checked all the time, not to be arrested with no cause, to disappear, to be tortured or shot. In addition, they would like to be able to shape the government in the direction which fits with their values (though most people are quite happy if it just leaves them alone) and to be able to protest freely when things upset them. These are the people that anyone opposing a dictatorship is campaigning for. Yet, everyone, especially governments must remember, that taking away the dictatorship is not the end of the process rather it is just the brief introduction to a process that will stretch over the following decades.