We've been joined by our daughter, Kitty, who occasionally sings with us when she feels so inclined, and she's joining in on this White Wind. After the killings at Sharpeville in South Africa in 19... 60 was it? Or 61? Anyway I wrote within a few weeks of that event, I wrote two songs, which became very popular in South Africa, and which were used as campaign songs by the African National Congress. And they were translated into half a dozen African languages, and they became very popular pieces. And matter of fact they were unrecognizable when I heard them again: they changed rythmically, the strophe form had changed, and they were quite unrecognizable, but they assured me that they were songs that I had written. [audience chuckles] So, later they kept coming up and saying "you must write some more for us", but the more I read about it, the more convinced I became that it was impossible—for me, at any rate—to do justice to what was happening in a single song. I determined to write a group of songs, but to relate them to each other. So, I made a little study, as best I could in the short time at my disposal, and talked to lots of Africans, and wrote these five pieces, each using a different style—a style, not an African style, but a style that was suggestive, inspired, touched off by listening to different African—music from different parts of Africa. And we recorded this, Peggy and I, and some friends, and it went out on the African service of the BBC. And within a month it had been translated into a couple of African languages, and again sections of it were being used as campaign songs. And since then, it's been translated into about nine different languages. We sing it very rarely because we very rarely get together, the whole family, but we hope we can remember it.
Did you hear the wind that came in the night from the Northland?
We have heard, we have heard.
Did you hear the notes of the broken song of the wind of the Northland?
Have you seen how the land was raped by the wind from the Northland?
We have seen, we have seen.
Have you seen the crops that were sown in the night by the wind from the Northland?
The land is bearing prisons.
Have you known the sickness borne on the wind from the Northland?
We have known, we have known.
Have you smelled the blood and known the hate that was born on the wind from the Northland?
And kill what they don't need.
AND CRYSTALS BURIED IN THE EARTH'S DRY GRAVE.
ONLY PRIDE IN THE SKIN OF THE WHITE TRIBE.
The natural offspring of Africa's soil.
Might be fed with their sweat?
Whose is the land and the riches of southern Africa?
The copper, the coal, the valuable diamonds, the glittering gold?
The people of Africa's south?
Who digs the coal and the copper and gold of Africa?
Who are the toilers? Who digs the diamonds, uranium ore?
And who gathers a harvest that's none of their own?
Who plunders the land and the people of southern Africa?
Who are the spoilers? Who owns the diamonds, uranium ore?
All the fruits of the earth?
Where is your daddy, son?
Why doesn't he live at home?
Why does he stay away?
Why does he leave you and your mammy alone?
Give him a permit to visit his home.
How will he know you, son?
He's been away so long.
So how will he know where you've gone?
How will you know him, son?
And the pass in his pocket is all that he owns.
Maybe he's lost his pass.
Waiting to earn enough cash.
Then sent him on his way.
Maybe they put him away.
Maybe he didn't say "Please".
Than live all your life on your knees.
Killed in a prison cell.
Maybe he's learned to rebel.
And he'll never let up till we've won.
Soweto! Soweto! Soweto! Soweto! Soweto!