Dexter Season 3 Episode 3 The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Alternative:

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Dănuțili dansând pe The Lion sleeps tonight… Avem si o a doua varianta, private…

It was a time of cultural change. The transition into the early 1960’s left young adults in a frenzy of mixed emotions – Rock n’ Roll or Doo Wop?

‘Jay Siegel, the leader of a young singing group from Brooklyn called “The Tokens,” introduced the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and added the now famous line “In the jungle, the mighty jungle.” He also excised all of the falsetto hollering from the original and retained the famous, magical melody of Solomon Linda.

Recorded live in RCA’s Manhattan studios on July 21, 1961, the song quickly became a big international hit, but not until some weird music history. The recording was the B side of a record with a flop on the A side called “Tina.” An obscure DJ in Worcester, MA flipped “Tina” over and was so impressed that he played “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” frequently. The response was unexpectedly strong, and the song reached the national charts by November and quickly become the number one recording.’

Felicha: As a pioneer of Doo-Wop emerging into the 1960’s, how did you find ways to project Peace through your music during a time of cultural change?

Jay: My music was all about love

Felicha: Do you think everyone has an innate desire to seek and experience Peace?

Jay: I would certainly hope so

Felicha: How can we as individuals achieve Peace on Earth and or good will toward humankind?

Jay: Try to Listen to each other

Felicha: Do you think the demand for Peace has decreased throughout the decades or is it presently stronger?

Jay: Most people in the world wan to live with their families in peace

Felicha: Is there one memory of Peace that sticks out?

Jay: Love & Peace through music at Woodstock

Felicha: Where do you find your Peace? How do you achieve it?

Jay: With the love of my family & friends

Felicha: What or who inspires your Peace? Do you have any Peace heros?

Jay: JFK

Felicha: Is it realistic to hope for world peace?

Jay: I certainly do

Felicha: How do you commit random acts of Peace?

Jay: Making people happy through my music

Felicha: Give us some words of your wisdom.

Jay: Focus on the love of Family & friends

Check out this (almost) acapella rendition of  ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ by The Adrian William Project, Jane Lui, Cathy Nguyen, and AJ Rafael. It’s a great clip and a lot of fun to watch. I’m completely mesmerized by Jane Lui’s voice, it’s so… enchanting hahaha.

It’s awesome seeing artists collab!

Source: ChannelAPA

———

“Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“You know how when you go to a football match, the fans chant ‘You’re going home in a great big ambulance’?”
“Yes…?”
“Well, generally, you don’t, do you? I mean, the role of the ambulance is primarily to transport you to the hospital.”
“That’s quite true.”
“So it’s wrong.”

Jessica looks up from her proofreading with a wry smile. “What you need to do is go to a football match and then get up halfway through and quietly explain that.”

“No, it’s just something that’s bugged me for years. I do appreciate the dual usage of the ambulance, and concede that an ambulance might be taking you home after a stay in hospital, at which point you will be fully recovered and once more fighting fit. But that’s not what it means here. What it in fact means is that you, the heathen scum who support the opposing side, will suffer righteous fury at the hands of the rest of us, thereby necessitating hospital treatment and the need for an ambulance.”

Mike thinks for a second. “I remember Alan Smith breaking his leg. The fans sang ‘You’re going home in a great big ambulance’.”
“Except he wasn’t. He was going to hospital.”

I swore back in February that I wasn’t going to write yet another rant about poor grammar, and I don’t intend to go back on my word now (except to say that I recently noticed that the children’s classic, ‘Me And My Teddy Bear’, contains a tremendous clanger. It opens with the lines “In the house right next to me / a little boy lives there”, which simply doesn’t work as a sentence or even as a coherent lyric – it’s like someone just jotting down random thoughts on paper). No, I’m more interested today in lyrics that simply don’t make any sense.

Before we discuss this, we ought to differentiate between lyrics that don’t work and lyrics that don’t sound right. The songs of Abba are a good example of the latter: Benny and Bjorn wrote fantastic, melodious pop that’s lasted for over thirty years, survived any number of tribute acts and covers and spawned a smash West End musical that eventually became a blockbuster movie (even if Pierce Brosnan did sound like something rather precious to him had been caught in his zip). I’d imagine that their lyrics read quite well in Swedish, but the English translations (constructed with more than a little help from Stig Anderson, at least early on) are a frequent source of amusement. As well as having to rhyme “Glasgow” with “last show” in the well-meant but whiny ‘Super Trouper’, Frida and Agnetha were also forced to stumble through some extremely awkward English in ‘Fernando’, as the two girls admit that “Now we’re old and grey, Fernando / Since many years I haven’t seen a rifle in your hand”. The word ‘since’ would only work, in this context, if it implied that the duo’s pipe-and-slippers state of affairs was directly connected with the state of the rifle, which is almost certainly not true, unless we’re talking about a magic Winchester that rejuvenates and prolongs life in the style of Bilbo’s ring or Dorian Gray’s hideous portrait. As it stands, it’s just an unfortunate enjambment of two phrases that don’t really go very well together, written and delivered by musicians who are having to construct tourist English, in the absence of having it as a first language. At least they don’t ask if we would like to go back to their place, bouncy-bouncy.

There are some songs that make the hairs of your neck stand up for entirely the wrong reasons. The violin-obsessed farmer of John Martin Sommers’ ‘Thank God I’m A Country Boy’, for example, begins his fourth verse with “I fiddled with my daddy ‘til the day he died”. At least, that’s how it sounded the first (and subsequently every) time I heard it – a quick Google reveals that it’s actually “My fiddle was my daddy’s ‘til the day he died”, but Denver storms through the song at such a breakneck pace that the damage is already done. (When I pointed this out to Emily, she reasoned that it would have been far worse if Denver had sung “My daddy fiddled with me”.)

I’m not advocating a Gold Standard of songwriting, nor am I suggesting that every lyric should read like a scientific paper. I’m just baffled by some of the things I hear. Alanis Morisette, for example, rhetorically asked “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?” before the rest of us were forced to cry in one voice “No!”. (Alanis, quick English lesson: Rain on your wedding day, as you’ve already been told by a thousand comedians and bloggers who forget to name their sources, is only ironic if you’re a weatherman who predicted a dry spell. A traffic jam when you’re already late is Sod’s law. And a black fly in your Chardonnay is a clear sign you’re in the wrong restaurant.) I don’t care if it was supposed to be funny or light-hearted or if the irony was that there was very little irony in there at all. It’s still sloppy writing.

I’d also point out that I’m deliberately excluding nonsense songs, mystical acid-themed trips or anything by Genesis (pre-1975, anyway). Some songs are just not meant to make sense, and I can live with that. (Others are purposefully stupid, their apparent contradictions delivered with a knowing wink to the listener: ‘I Remember It Well’ is an obvious example.) I don’t think that there’s a single person who’s ever managed to adequately explain ‘I Am The Walrus’ – the late Ian MacDonald’s conviction that it was a rant against the establishment, through its use of compromised authority figures, simply doesn’t wash with me. As far as I’m concerned it’s just an effort on Lennon’s part to avoid yet more analysis by concocting a melee of images that are so abstract you can’t possibly explain them.

Others, however, can be explained, but they still make no sense. I can remember hearing ‘You’re So Vain’ a whole bunch of times, across a period many years, before suddenly realising that Carly Simon was in complete denial. Having spent the first verse describing a conceited gentleman who enters the home of a soiree like he was “walking onto a yacht”, complete with light linen suit (tailored), tasteful scarf and all the right moves, she then goes on to detail his womanising tendencies and various mistresses, at least one of which is “the wife of a close friend”. Simon’s understated rant about a man who may or may not be James Taylor is eloquent, thoughtfully constructed with some beautiful imagery (it really doesn’t get much better than “I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee”) and not a little bitter. That’s the coffee, you understand.

But it’s in the chorus where she screws up. After copious physical descriptions of an egotist who is so self-obsessed he could give Jennifer Lopez a run for her money, our dear Carly makes her fatal slip, as she sings “You’re so vain / you probably think this song is about you”. Well, who else was it about? I’m sorry, Carly, but I’ve spent hours analysing this and I don’t think you’re singing about yourself. I can only assume that you’re directing your narrative at a set of egotistical men who are standing in front of you (Ms. Simon has admitted more than once that “the song is a composite of three people”) and you’re goading your victim into giving himself away through simply narcissism. All hail the power of suggestion, but you really do need to make these things more obvious.

Abandoning horses in Saratoga and heading for hippos in the Serengeti, we end up instead in the middle of a jungle, where we find a lion, apparently having a snooze. Except he isn’t, surely? I’m no biologist, but the last time I checked, there was a general dearth of Panthera Leo in the jungle. They tend to restrict themselves to grassland, except in parts of India, where they live in scrub forests, which is not the same thing. And yet we’re supposed to believe Solomon Linda’s assertion that “in the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight”. I mentioned this over dinner one evening to Emily’s friend Kirsten, and was swiftly rebuffed: “He’s lost! All right? He’s lost. He made a wrong turn and wound up in the jungle. Deal with it.”

The second verse begins

“In the village, the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight…”

That’s better. Now we’re getting somewhere. I can certainly envisage a big cat taking a nocturnal stroll through a settlement right next to the pride lands, and deciding it would be as good a place as any to bed down for the night. Having said all that it does remind me of the old joke about two lions who escape from Blackpool Zoo and decide to take a walk along the beach, whereupon one of them remarks to the other, “Not many people about for a bank holiday”. Perhaps it would have been better of Solomon had rewritten his second verse so that it read “In the village, the peaceful village / The lion sleeps tonight / but the villagers probably won’t.”

Perhaps the most jaw-dropping example of poor logic in lyric writing that I’ve encountered occurs in an excruciating 1969 recording by Pat Campbell, who also recorded T. Texas Tyler’s ‘Deck of Cards’. In that, a young soldier is arrested for starting a round of patience during a church service, but rather than admit his crime, he pulls off a dazzling ruse, managing to convince his commanding officers that the cards symbolise days of the week, months of the year and assorted Biblical types. (In some versions of the song the charge against the soldier is dropped, while in others it’s left somewhat ambiguous, although Wink Martindale’s rendition concludes, sickeningly, with the words “And friends, the story is true. I know…I was that soldier.”)

A quick sniff of his biography – such as it is, the details on the web are scant – shows that this sort of rubbish is perfect for Campbell. The back cover of his 1970 album, Just A Quiet Conversation, reads “Pat Campbell was born in Ireland, but it might just as well have been Nashville. He’s been there many times and he’s welcomed as a friend by the biggest names in the world of country music. On each visit he brings a little piece of Nashville home with him, but also leaves a little of Pat Campbell there in return.” He was trying to avoid passport control, then. (For those of you who are interested or particularly sadistic / masochistic, the whole album is available for download, gratis, from WFMU’s 365 Days project.

If ‘Deck of Cards’ is twee, sentimental claptrap of the highest order, it does at least have some semblance of common sense about it, which is more than you could say for ‘The Deal’, our song of choice this afternoon. On this occasion, dear old Patrick assumes the persona of a young man in a hospital waiting room, who is placed into an appalling moral dilemma when doctors tell him that because of “complications” (and because this is the 1960s), lives are at stake and he will have to choose between saving his wife and his unborn child. Devastated, he stumbles into the chapel, whereupon he offers himself as a substitute – “If you gotta take one, please, please let it be me”. Back in the corridor, he finds his legs giving way, and he shuffles off this mortal coil just as the doctors come rushing through from surgery to inform him that against all the odds, both wife and child have survived.

Campbell delivers the song in the form of a spoken monologue, with a vague sense of cadence at the end of what you might consider to be ‘verses’. A chapel organ – perhaps the very one keeping him company in the hospital – drones in the background. It’s all very cheap and cheerless, but it’s the subject matter that really grates. The concept of Campbell’s dilemma is akin to the episode of The Simpsons where Ron Howard, in an obvious parody of his real life persona, pitches a movie to a bored executive by suggesting that there’s “this robot, he’s got a heart-breaking decision to make about whether his best friend lives…or dies.” When the executive appears nonplussed, Howard swiftly adds “His best friend is a talking pie!”, which gets him a huge bag of cash and a reprise of the Happy Days theme.

Even before this, things are pretty grim: left alone in the waiting room while his wife goes through the labour without him (this was the 60s, don’t forget) Campbell (yes, I know he’s only playing a character, but his delivery is so revolting I am going to permanently weld him to the song) describes his nerves about the impending arrival of his “long-awaited son”, before allowing himself a chuckle with the realisation that “it could be an old girl”. (A very young one, actually, but let’s not go there.) You can almost visualise his thought process: “Ooh, it’s going to be a boy! Except I don’t actually know.” It’s like Carousel’s ‘Soliloquy’ condensed into fifteen seconds, with none of the emotion.

It’s in the chapel that things get much worse. It’s worth noting, purely as an aside, that none of my whinging about this would amount to anything if the song had been delivered with even a trace of irony, but that’s not the case – the implication throughout is that we’re supposed to take ‘The Deal’ absolutely seriously The pleading, heartfelt anxiety of Campbell’s prayer to his heavenly father is undermined somewhat by the fact that this whole thing makes no sense at all. I really don’t want to get too theological here, but in the first instance I take great issue with his assertion that “You must love them an awful lot, Lord…because you can’t make up your own mind which one to extend your loving hand to”. What, there wasn’t room for both? That’s not evidence of a loving God. That’s evidence of a sadistic bastard who delegates to avoid the guilt. Why Campbell isn’t pacing the floor shouting at the ceiling in his hour of need is frankly beyond me, but I’m willing to let that go, because he’s undergoing emotional trauma. That being said, his crowning moment of stupidity is his decision to offer himself in order to save his family.

Now, I’m all for the idea of laying down your life for your friends. I’m not sure I’d ever be able to go through with anything quite so unselfish, but there can’t be many more noble ways to go out. If you do it well enough, they name a high school after you. Nonetheless, Campbell’s actions here aren’t an act of glorious self-sacrifice akin to Ryan Chappelle’s untimely execution in 24, or the guy who chucks the wounded colleague over the lava, destroying himself in the process, halfway through Volcano. Because his decision to save his wife and child and ask for himself to be taken in exchange entirely fails to take into account the fact that he’s leaving them to manage on their own. It could be that it’s actually a blessing in disguise for Campbell’s wife, given that she can presumably now raise their boy / old girl in comparative peace without the threat of one of his mawkish monologues every time they experience a momentous event, or even worse, a trivial one. “Look, Celia, these are playing cards. Did I ever tell you the story about the time I was caught playing cards in church…?”.

But still. It’s the principle here. If you really want to strike any sort of deal with the Almighty, you don’t offer yourself in exchange. This isn’t Watership Down. You say “Dear Lord, if you have to take someone…take Oscar, who I know has been embezzling the company for months even though I can’t prove anything. Or take my mother-in-law. No, please, take her. Or the chap who cut me up on the A46 this evening.” But oh no. Not good enough for our Pat. Far better to say “It’s fine, God, I don’t mind the pain of the sudden coronary and the inevitable blast of guilt that will catch me in my final moments, with the realisation that I’ve left my wife as sole breadwinner and my baby boy / old girl without a father. I’d rather go out knowing I’ve made the supreme sacrifice. And widow’s benefits really aren’t that bad these days.” Campbell isn’t a Captain Oates, he’s a frigging idiot.

Pedantry comes very naturally to me, largely because being able to pick out the details is one of the few things I’m good at. Details are important, but not in the grand scheme, and over the years I’ve got used to the fact that people care about this sort of thing far less than I do. Besides, you can’t analyse art the same way you would a piece of A-Level coursework, because that’s not its purpose. I do wish that ‘Angels’ (a song about nothing, even if it is supposed to be about dead babies) had not been held up as a shining example of good writing to the extent that it won Best Song of the Past 25 Years at the Brits, but I guess some people go for style over substance. Which means that confusing songs will continue to be written, and as a result of this I’m guessing that poor logic will, ultimately, be an inevitability – although I don’t think it could get much worse than ‘The Deal’.

I was thinking about all this, albeit in a far more truncated form, over the course of about three or four seconds, in the middle of our conversation about football, and the thought of men collapsing and requiring ambulances brought me back to the football chant we’d been discussing. Perhaps at the end of the day it’s how you look at the song, rather than what it was supposed to represent. Maybe songs are no longer the creative property of their owners once they’ve been unveiled, at least not really: the way in which the artist relates to his work is always going to be unique and as such that relationship will always be special, but perhaps there needs to be room for another set of views – the people who will hear the song, and claim its subject matter as their own, and to all intents and purposes own it for themselves.

“The thing is,” said Mike, “I could see one interpretation – as in we’re going to beat you up so badly that the hospital will now become your new home.”
“I’d not thought of it that way.”
Mike takes another contemplative pause, and then adds:
“But I don’t think that’s what it means.”
“Neither do I.”

Gracie, not quite sleeping, in her new birthday ‘Dalmatian’ pyjamas.

I should have posted this yesterday but tiredness got the better of me. As you will see from the clip, Gracie had three birthdays (doing better than the Queen), one on Sunday with Granny and Granddad, one yesterday morning with mummy, and then over to Papa’s for another one.

The lion toy you see her with was not a birthday present, it’s an old toy from one of Jordan’s board games. It sings the song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", I think that’s what the game is called too. Gracie loves it. So much for all that money spent on new toys. Ah well, she had fun unwrapping them and I really think she enjoyed her birthday, all of them

Cantata de Perpetuum Jazzile. Acum o ascult pentru prima oara si imi place.

Este chair interesanta si ma face sa ma gandesc la

Cantata de Perpetuum Jazzile. Acum o ascult pentru prima oara si imi place.

Este chair interesanta si ma face sa ma gandesc la

Let’s try interdisciplinary learning

Thanks to the lovely animation video “the lion sleeps tonight” by an hippo and a little dog (for beginners)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVRgYLN4YkA&feature=related we  hinted at Miriam Makeba, a great South African singer  (born in 1932 near Johannesburg) and civil rights activist, who died in November 2008 during a concert for Roberto Saviano.

PLEASE TRANSLATE INTO GERMAN/ITALIAN

Miriam came first to the public’s attention as a featured vocalist with the Manhatten Brothers in 1954. She even sang at President Kennedy’s birthday and in 1963 she held a speech against apartheid before the United Nations. Mrs. Makeba knew Harry Belafonte and worked together with him creating such classics as “The Click Song” or “Pata Pata”.

When she wanted to return to South Africa because her mother had died her passport was retracted and she couldn’t fly back. She  eventually fled to exile in Guinea because of these harassments. In 1990 following Nelson Mandela’s release from prison she returned to South Africa as a free citizen.

One of her famous songs is called “A  PIECE OF GROUND”

http://biggaff.blogspot.com/2008/11/miriam-makeba-piece-of-ground.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Io33a8hfA

Some questions to the meaning of the song. (Give answers)

- What did the white man want to do when he found new ground?

- Were there  any other people who wanted their piece of ground?

- When was gold found in South Africa?

- Why did the black man have to work in the mines?

- What happens if the white man sleeps too long?

BITTE  UEBERSETZT DIE FOLGENDEN SAETZE ROBERTO SAVIANO BETREFFEND AUF ENGLISCH ODER ITALIENISCH

Roberto wurde am 22. September 1979 in Neapel geboren.

Er studierte Filosophie und schreibt als Journalist für verschiedene wichtige Zeitungen/Zeitschriften.

Seit  der Veröffentlichung seines Buches “Gomorra”  muss er seinen Wohnort immer wieder wechseln, sich verstecken und wird von der Polizei beschützt.

Er ist verschiedentlich mit dem Tod bedroht worden, weil er anscheinend versucht mit der Literatur und Reportagen die Wahrheit über das organisierte Verbrechen zu erzählen.

Piece of Ground

Video contains SPOILERS!

So I too have been entranced by the song “Jai Ho!” by A. H. Rahman off of the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. Still haven’t actually seen the movie yet, so I don’t want to comment on the movie itself, and issues surrounding it. (Such as: the portrayal of India or the very Western fairy-tale like plot. This post and this post at Racialicious is better than anything I can come up with.)

So far, I’ve only listened to two of the songs off of the soundtrack, “Jai Ho” and “Paper Planes” because I’m a fan of her and her music.

And then there’s the Pussycat Dolls version. It’s basically just using the catchy background music to a completely different song and A.H. Rahman singing the hook, ‘Jai Ho.’ The original lyrics aren’t quite as sexual as their American counterpart, and more about celebrating life. The PCD version is your basic PCD song.

Usually when a song is translated to English, while still usually a bit opportunistic (see the controversy surrounding the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight“), the problems aren’t that obvious. The Pussycat Dolls ‘cover’ is clearly an cash-in on the popularity of Slumdog Millionaireand the craftsmanship of Rahman.

In this case, I’m sticking with the original. The song is mostly sung in Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi but there is a section sung in Spanish and the song also includes elements of Japanese and Arabic music.

But is the original song in the native tongue always better? I think for the most part, yes.

Let me explain what I mean by better. Usually with the original you are getting the songwriter’s immediate thoughts (edited for coherency and rhythm) including colloquialisms that make sense in the native tongue. Often times in translations the meanings get lost, sentences get longer often times making the song sound awkward.

With the orginial ”Jai Ho” you don’t need to know any of the Indian-based languages to appreciate how the words sound. (Obviously, it helps.) It may seem silly at first, but I think how something sounds is one of the most important parts of writing a song or a poem, right under the actual content of the song. An awkwardly phrased sentence / line is akin to nails down a chalkboard for many writers.

To explain what I mean, let me provide an example with some Latino singers whose songs are on my iPod right now. I think that discussing Latino singers and Spanish lyrics and their crossover appeal to outside audiences pertinent to talk about since it also reflects on the change going on in the United States with the growing Latino population growing, especially the younger generation that may be second or third generation U.S. citizens that tend to be bilingual.

Now, it is very important to know what something means in a different language, especially as the world grows interconnected in various ways.

First is Gloria Estefan, one of the original Latina crossover singer. “Oye!” is off her 1998 album gloria!  The album is more of a club album aimed towards a younger audience, instead of the usual adult contemporary market she is grouped in. (She’s been around since the 80’s so her market grew with her.) It’s a bilingual song, with Spanish parts making up the chorus. Now while she was born in Cuba, Estefan has spent most of her early life in the States so a direct translation from Spanish to English and vice versa would probably be easier, as she would be more familiar with English.

However, I personally like the all-Spanish remix better, probably because there’s more base. The song also changes. In English, Estefan is more forward, and in the Spanish version she is the one being seduced. However the general theme of ‘let’s never stop dancing’ stays roughly the same.

With Shakira the translation issues are different. The native Colombian, and did not start crossing over to English speaking audiences until 2000. The album Laundry Service was originally supposed to contain translations of previous released songs, but instead Shakira created new songs for that album, creating songs in English (and Spanish obviously) conscious of the translation issues.

“Suerte” and it’s English counterpart “Whenever, Wherever” are roughly similar. Some have criticized her English speaking abilities due to lines like:

Lucky that my breasts are small and humble /
So you don’t confuse them with mountains

Which sounds silly, until you realize most of the song is here making fun of herself and the problems of a long distance relationship. It’s actually pretty clever. Shakira really good with wordplay no matter the language, and likes playing around with them. In explaining the title for the following two albums, Fijación Oral Vol. 1 and Oral Fixation Vol. 2, she said:

The title comes from the fact that I have always lived through my mouth… It is my biggest source of pleasure and my most accessible vehicle to discover and enjoy the world. I am fixated on chocolate! I am fixated on the spoken word, the written word, the things I have said and the things I should never have said.

However, the above to are examples of singers translating their own songs, choosing to change the meaning of the song or keep it as close to the originalas possible.

Going back to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” you have an entirely different case.

See the band above? These are the original band who created the song, called “Mbube.” But since it was the 1940’s and the band was from South Africa, the song was brought over to the states to become a doo-wop staple. It was not until 2000 that the truth was covered, and 2004 that the Linda family got any money from the song. You know the song that was featured in a ’small indie movie’ called, oh, The Lion King.

Now, the above is something that is unfortunate but I wouldn’t feel too awful if you enjoyed the cover. I mean, I would seek out the original to hear it. But making yourself aware of the situation is always good. 

Maybe I am being naive but I think that as time goes on, this will be less of a problem.  English speaking singers/bands/songwriters are becoming more culturally senseitive by starting to credit where it is do. 

However the popularity of the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, or french artist’s Yelle album, Pop-Up, both album with songs primarilyor completely with out English lyrics, is also a positive trend which shows that people are willing to expand their horizons. This isn’t to say artists shouldn’t translate their songs, as it helps them to reach larger audiences. But if you come across a song sung in the singer’s native language, try listening to it. You might learn something. I know I do.

De la historia, las versiones y los significados. Un homenaje (agridulce) a Pete Seeger.

Anoche Pete Seeger cumplió 90 años. Lo celebró con un concierto en el Madison Square Garden, acompañado por Billy Bragg, Bruce Springsteen y muchos otros.

Mi padre, hace muchos años, me contó que la famosísima “Wimoweh” había sido escrita por Seeger, y que solía cantarse en los mítines del partido comunista norteamericano.

En este clip se puede ver y escuchar a Seeger cantando el final de “Wimoweh”.

Mientras el presentador le entrevista, Seeger rasguea los primeros acordes de una canción. El presentador le pregunta: “Are you going to play THAT song?” Hablan sobre qué significan sus canciones. Seeger explica que  no tienen un significado fijo. Aquel tema que estaba rasgueando es la antimilitarista “Waist in the Big Muddy”, que la CBS cortaría de la emisión (acababa de empezar la guerra de Vietnam).  Finalmente, después de un corte, Seeger canta “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”.

Pero la canción de hoy es “Wimoweh”.

En realidad la música de “Wimoweh”, claro, no había sido escrita por Seeger. Originalmente era una canción africana, de título “Mbube”. Un artículo de la Rolling Stone cuenta la fascinante historia de las versiones de la canción, desde Sudáfrica hasta su explotación por la Disney.

Esta era “Mbube”, de Solomon Linda and The Evening:

Mi padre se refería a la versión de los Weavers, el grupo con el que Seeger triunfó  en los años cuarenta y cincuenta gracias a esa y a otras muchas canciones. Hasta que se negaron a declarar ante el Comité de Actividades Antiamericanas, y su carrera terminó de forma fulminante.

Después vino la que sin duda es la versión más famosa, de los Tokens, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”:

Los Tokens añadieron además la letra, que intentaba acercarse vagamente a la letra original de Solomon Linda, en la que aparece un león dormido como reencarnación del último rey zulú que, algún día, despertará.

Orígenes, versiones e historia de la canción aparte, el caso es que, gracias a aquella primera información, una imagen me ha acompañado siempre que escucho cualquier versión de la canción, y sobre todo la de los Tokens, que es la que con más frecuencia se puede oir.  Imaginar esa escena me ayuda a construir un contexto  con el que evitar aquello en que la canción se ha convertido en manos de la Disney y su Rey León.

Es muy sencilla: probad a pensar en el sentido que “Wimoweh” podía tener para un matrimonio de militantes comunistas norteamericanos, en los años cincuenta, acosados por el mcarthysmo, al poner esa canción en su pick up, por la noche, para que sus hijos se durmiesen.

De esta manera, hasta la posterior letra de la canción de los Tokens, de repente, se puebla de otras junglas y de otros leones:

In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight
In the jungle the quiet jungle
The lion sleeps tonight

Near the village the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight
Near the village the quiet village
The lion sleeps tonight

Hush my darling don’t fear my darling
The lion sleeps tonight
Hush my darling don’t fear my darling
The lion sleeps tonight

Cuando oigo esta canción en la cola de un supermercado, o en la galería de un centro comercial, siempre me divierte pensar en que todas las compras de esa gente, en ese preciso momento, tienen como fondo un mensaje de peligrosa propaganda política. Claro que, visto desde el otro lado, supongo que el resultado es más bien triste: la definitiva capitulación, o neutralización, de un significado. Lo cierto es que “Mbube/Wimoweh/The Lion Sleeps Tonight” es un ejemplo acelerado, en apenas unas décadas, de lo que la historia hace con un objeto artístico.

Aquí se puede ver un fragmento de un documental de la PBS sobre Seeger. La imagen de Seeger, en buena parte gracias a él mismo, se ha suavizado bastante hasta convertirse en la de un apacible patriarca de la música folk estadounidense, “por encima de las ideologías”.

El caso de Seeger resulta especialmente interesante para pensar en cómo actúan los mecanismos de la neutralización ideológica, y en qué consiste la materialidad de los significados, la especificidad histórica, de un objeto artístico. Aquella ligazón que exigía Brecht, en  “Las cinco dificultades para decir la verdad”, y que los idealistas borran de un plumazo denominándola “circunstancias”. En esa idealización cayó Seeger (“mis canciones pueden significar lo que cada persona quiera”), o fue obligado a caer, debido a la censura. De ahí que sus canciones tengan ese aire ambiguo y eterno, general, capaz de aplicarse a tantos contextos. El peligro de la censura no reside únicamente en las mutilaciones que opera, sino en la forzada “espiritualización”, indefinición, a la que obliga.

Esa ambigüedad, por otra parte, qué duda cabe, es la que ayuda a la posterior recuperación de ese objeto, a su constante reactualización. Hoy he querido simplemente, por puro gamberrismo, rescatar uno de los significados que “Wimoweh” tuvo. Para tratar de romper así, por un momento, la ilusión de la etérea “pluralidad de significados”. Que no es sino la imposición de un sólo sentido, pero ahora privado. Cada persona es libre para atribuir  a la canción un sentido distinto, único, intransferible. Es decir: ninguno. Hoy quería inyectar algo de materia histórica, de “sucias circunstancias”, a esta canción considerada hoy como un tema completamente “inocente”, para niños. No se trata, claro está, de ninguna “forma original” de la canción. Sino simplemente de un pequeño significado colectivo que la canción, un día, para un cierto número de personas en este país, tuvo.

En fin, son sólo unas notas, esto habría que elaborarlo mucho más.

Para terminar, otras canciones y versiones de Seeger que seguro que todos conocemos:

“Turn, Turn, Turn”: del Eclesiastés a los Byrds. En medio, Seeger.

“If I Had a Hammer”:  el martillo también se suavizó con el correr de las versiones. En todo caso, hay que reconocer que la de Trini López es adorable.

I found a couple Cd’s my parents purchased from a group of musicians I heard in New York while I was there in January. My dad came across the group after getting off the subway one stop east of the Met. Normally I don’t appreciate my dad’s taste in anything music, but after kicking and screaming a bit about how I didn’t want to waste my last day listening to an underground subway concert, I obliged and went with my parents to the subway station on 79th and Lexington and had a listen of Acapella Soul.

They are very soulful. Here’s a video I found of them on YouTube:

I’m sorry that the best quality video had to be them singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

I guess it shouldn’t be any surprise that March is coming in like a lion in Maine today and tonight with a winter storm.  Only a few more weeks and we will be on the lamb side!  This map is courtesy of WGME13.com.

It all reminded me of The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens.  (I have been looking for a reason to post this video and this seemed like the best shot I would get!)

Production of Tonight @ 11:30 would not have been possible without the tireless effort and dedication of Mike Hand.

Mike was so good in fact, we all agreed it was a great idea to just make more of him. So we enlisted the talents of Dr. Shandore (and his disfigured assistant Plasma) and created a clone army…of Mikes.

When they weren’t lighting, shooting, performing, and editing the show, the clones would often gather together in small groups and break into song. It was a treat to behold.  Those little buggers could harmonize!

Here is one such magical moment, caught on tape.

Enjoy…