h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Dmitri! Many of our traditional Afrikaans songs have tunes going back to the Netherlands or to Germany. For instance this one. You might have a chuckle about how they unnecessarily jazzified it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVtOy5SitfQ

(By Coetzenburg vloei 'n waterstroom)

Translated lyrics:

At Coetzenburg a stream flows, haai haai joegaai!
And there a big oak tree grows, haai haai joegaai!
There many a pious student, haai haai joegaai!
Promised his love, the stupid fellow
And got put down and messed up his face
And suddenly awoke from his spring dream
Watch out for the old oak tree!

There where the blue peaks rise,
There where the angry professor lives,
There is our university,
And there we always have fun.

Cultural note: this song is popular among students at the University of Stellenbosch - the university at the stream flowing beside Coetzenburg referred to.

Can you trace this tune to its origin?

I could do that without hearing the song. It's 'In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus'.

Right you are! I knew you'd do it ... didn't think you could do it without even listening though!

Here's another nicked tune ... you might be able to get this one too:

https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKtNTwvGft4&t=135s

Gé Korsten again, this time with Leon Schuster, a guy who's written and sung a shipload of funny and silly songs. I'll post the lyrics translation soon ... anyways this tune is about life in the Army during our undeclared/unacknowledged war in Angola and what is now Namibia. Except the folks in the vid seem to have been stationed in a part where there wasn't much fighting. It's a mildly satirical take on what was in effect a dirty, nasty and brutal war, one of our most shameful periods.

Sorry, I couldn't get that one to come up.

Don't you know this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYKWch_MNY0

Anyways the lyrics for the army song, translated:

Oh man, it's fun in the army
From Tempe to Grootfontein
In a Ratel at Otawi
Or high in a bush aeroplane

A rank I don't want to wear
Just an R1 here close at my side
Oh man it's fun in the army
And a troop here I want to stay

One Wednesday I went AWOL
The rugby officer was miffed
He made me leopard-crawl to goalpost
and was chosen for the DB

On the border in the evening when I long so much
for my girl far away in the states
I beat with my fork on my pig pan
And our bungalow starts to dance

If you get sick from the food
that you get in the Army
Be glad that you get paid for it
They call it the danger pay

I save it and forget it
in the bank it lies dead still
and when I've cleared out
I will buy what I desire
It's a thing that roars under me

Notes: A ratel is an armoured vehicle, and an R1 is an automatic rifle used in the SA military.

I meant that the link didn't work for me.

I know that song. That's a funny parody.

Sorry about the link! Funny that it won't work ... I wonder why? Did it say anything?

Anyways here's another song about the war, or more properly about the kids who went to war. Much cognitive dissonance here ... it was really a horrible war with atrocities committed by both (actually *all* would be a better term since there were more than two 'contenders') sides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOXiEGEgN-0

The war was a matter of propaganda ... the need to stop the communist onslaught in Africa, by warring to make sure the 'right' faction got into the power after the Portuguese left. So basically South Africa's Vietnam. The war was never official acknowledged. We were supposedly only sending troops to Namibia (then called South West Africa and politically part of SA) to guard the border against incursions from SWAPO (South West African People's Organisation, a communist group) but actually we were pushing into Angola and fighting the war there. And they had these kids doing the fighting. And in many cases where these kids never returned to their families, no-one was told what really happened, the real details of what went on.

Again I'll post the lyrics tomorrow ...

I just got an error message on that one, Willem. I couldn't sort it out.

I get the cognitive dissonance with this one. I notice a variety of opinions in the comment section, too. I have sympathy for the person who wrote that 40 years ago, they thought this was the 'stupidest song' they'd ever heard, and now it brought tears to their eyes...

One of the pieces of human misbehaviour that really gets to me is when they start a war for no sane reason (which is most of the time), and then try to guilt everyone into cheering it on in order to 'support the troops'. Yes, Mrs MacKenzie, we're going to take your son and turn him into a killer, and possibly get him killed. Now, you're unpatriotic if you don't shout 'hurrah' along with everyone else...I believe there will be questions asked in the parliament of heaven...

Anyway, for what it's worth (no, not that song!), here's the USA's closest equivalent, I suspect: The Ballad of the Green Berets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSmUOj_CnrQ

Looking forward to those lyrics.

Hi Dmitri! Well ... 'Troepie Doepie' isn't a song glorifying the war as 'The Green Berets' is but is a soppy love-song using the war as setting. Anyways ... I think the thing is to separate the folks who have to go fight the war, from the folks who decide there's a war that must be fought. War does bring out incredible acts of heroism in ordinary people which must be respected ... but still it also brings out the worst in people at the same time. In the Angola war, kids had to go, there wasn't even a draft, every male kid had to go for 2 years military service after school. There were many kids who hated it and thought or knew that the war was actually a huge stinking pile of disgusting stinking stuff, but they still went, they gave their all, and in many cases, their lives. And not for the sake of killing the 'enemy' but for protecting their friends and fellows. Some did think they were serving their country and doing something noble. There was so, so much bitterness about that war afterward, and today it is pretty clear that it was all for nothing. I think the guys who decide that a war should be fought should be required to go fight it personally, in the front lines, to show that they really believe in the cause. I believe that requirement would seriously cut down the amount of war in the world. Maybe not eliminate all war as I'd love, but it would be a start.

OK here are the lyrics to 'Troepie Doepie', translated:

When the first Jacaranda in Pretoria
Brings spring after the winter
Comes again in my heart the summer dreams
Of long ago, but they don't bring you back

Troopy-doopy when are you coming home?
In the foreign place can you hear me call?
Walk through the bush and the sand
And do your duty for your land
But come back to me my Troopy-doop

When the moon is cut in two by the clouds
And it slumbers high up in the sky
There hang stars, thousand stars against the heavens

Sorry again the lyrics cut off! Continuing:

There hang stars, thousand stars against the heavens
May the last star one day bring you back

Chorus

All right, for a change, a new song, and a good one. This song was written by Valiant Swart. He wrote this for the mother of a talented young musician who had committed suicide. Here is the lyrics translated:

Sonvanger (Suncatcher)

See if you can catch the sun for me
There's a room in the house where the sun can hang
It's dark by the window in the middle of the day
Do you remember how brightly the room could laugh?

See if you can bring the sun to me
There's a song in the halls which the sun can sing
Because it's quiet in the corners in this cold season
Can you see what the wind and the rain does to me?

Chorus:

Su - u - u - uncatcher
I ask you nicely, let it shine again for me
Su - u - u - uncatcher
Let me understand
How a summer could, just like that, disappear into the nothingness
And let it shine

See if you can get the sun for me
There's house in my heart where the sun can stay
See if you can steal the sun for me
There's a place in the garden where the sun can play

Chorus

Bring a bit of light for the turns on my road
And a handful of rays for the darkness in my heart

Here's the song sung by Valiant Swart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBWkI7wGa4s

And here's the song covered by Refentse Morake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkh1HjS-oO0

I'm with on the sending-the-politicians-to-war stuff.

Today, I was researching old texts by Pennsylvania Germans, and found a German-language pamphlet from 1748. It was presenting the case for non-violence and opposing a proposal for Pennsylvania to take up arms against pirates - they were coming up the Delaware River, and the militant faction was complaining that New Jersey wasn't stopping them.

Anyway, guess who the pamphlet was directed against? That old (or in 1748, young) troublemaker, Benjamin Franklin.

Plus ca change...

Hey Dmitri I think you missed the posting above yours!

Yeah, I did, thanks! Lovely song! I like that second video a lot.

Glad you liked that!

Here's something you might find interesting. Refentse also did a Zulu version of the song 'Jantjie' written by Anton Goosen and here performed by Sonja Herholdt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RjDxVzXppw

And here's the Zulu version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx7JagR13BA

I really think we need more of this cross-cultural kind of music in this country.

Lyrics translated:

Jantjie come home
Katryntjie's waiting for you
Jantjie come home
The Cape is empty without you

My ghantang from the Undercape
Where the mommies walk on their heels
Who can take it, my dear,
Who can take it then?
Take my hand and take me along
To the Dixie-land tonight
Jantjie of the Undercape

Chorus

Jantjie I love you

Note: 'ghantang' is an old Cape word meaning lover.

Nice.

Koos du Plessis was a great songwriter. Many Afrikaans artists have covered his songs. He died tragically young - 39 years old - in a car accident. Here he sings 'Sprokie vir 'n Stadskind' ('Fairy Tale for a City Child') himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C91k-NOXzwg

Translated lyrics:

When the rain of dust and soot has ended
And the smoke disappears
There will, in the starless heavens
A neon arch appear

And look well now, since if you find it,
I'll tell you a fairy tale, my child
Of a treasure chest bound with old chains
At the end of the neon arch

Follow it every night over black rivers
Over cliffs of concrete
If you keep walking for ten thousand hours
You just might get there

But here you must never let yourself be bound
Since this is how the fairy tale goes
If you want to find happiness and peace
Find the end of the neon arch

Follow it every night over black rivers
Don't look back even once
Maybe you'll find the land of blue sapphires
And maybe a scrap of sunlight

Now, that's my idea of a good delivery!

Lovely song.

Glad you like it! Now here's a real oldie, a bit of an antique of a song, and I would like to know what you think of it. I remember my father teaching this song to me. Can you figure out what it's about without my posting the translated lyrics?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRFZeYI3Bo0