Song 23:
"Africa" by Toto
Peak: 1
Year: 1982
Year end position: 24
Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/5
Chronological Songs by Artist: 3/5
Video?: Yes
Spotify?: Yes
We are 23 songs into the blog, and this is the third song
that we've had that names a place, although this is only the second song that
has that place be a proper place name ("Across the River" being the
one song that was not). The first place
name was the city of Abilene, Kansas.
The difference between today's song and those others is that today's
place is an entire continent. I did some
digging to see what other continents we would come across, and there are,
perhaps unsurprisingly, very few. There
are no songs that have the word "Europe" in the title, although we
will get to the hair metal band Europe later on. There are no songs or bands that mention
Antarctica. The same goes for Australia
specifically, although there is "Down Under" by Men at Work. There was one song with the word
"Asia" that we will get to at some point very soon ("Asia
Minor" by Kokomo) as well as 3 songs by the band Asia. North and South America are a little more
tricky. There are 4 songs that have the
word "America", but virtually all of them are referring to America as
short for the USA, as opposed to referencing the continent ("America"
by Neil Diamond, "Calling America" by ELO, "In America" by
the Charlie Daniels Band and "Living in America" by James
Brown"). There were several more
songs that had the word "American", but they were using the word more
as an adjective to describe where something was from rather than to use the
place as the subject.
The first two songs about places had a common theme of
longing to them. "Abilene" was
about longing to get back to Abilene.
"Across the River" was about longing to leave for something
better. "Africa" doesn't seem
to carry those themes. I had to listen
to this song more than a few times and read some descriptions of the song
before I could even understand what the song was about. I found this quote from the lead singer of
Toto: "At the beginning of the '80s
I watched a late night documentary on TV about all the terrible death and
suffering of the people in Africa. It both moved and appalled me and the
pictures just wouldn't leave my head. I tried to imagine how I'd feel about if
I was there and what I'd do.". I'm
not sure this clears things up for me too much.
My best guess about what this song is about is someone that has thrown
all his efforts into some kind of work in Africa and the woman he loves is
coming to reunite with him. The singer
is looking for some direction in his life, and he is hoping that this visit
from the woman is going to provide him with that. That's just my guess though. I still say the lyrics are a little murky.
Perhaps the most misheard part of the lyrics are "Sure
as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti". I've read maybe 2 or 3 common mis-hearings of
this line. I've heard it as "Rising
like a lepress" (female leopard?) or "Rises like an empress". If you don't have a good grasp of mountains,
I can see how these versions could make more sense. Olympus being the mountain in Greece where
the gods are supposed to live. My
favorite piece of trivia about this song is that Kilimanjaro is some 200 miles
away from the Serengeti which would more than a day's drive. I guess you might be able to see it from that
far off, but I think this line is not really supposed to be a geography lesson
(unless you count the fact that both Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti are both in
Africa as the lesson. If that's the
case, congratulations. Lesson learned).
As it seems with
all videos from this era, the concept of this one is somewhat nebulous. The lead singer of Toto is leafing through
some books in a library looking for what book some torn page comes from. There is a sexy librarian watching over
him. At some point, the lead singer
finds a book entitled "Africa" just as someone throws a spear into
the library somehow causing it to burn to the ground. The "Africa" book burns while
showing that it was the book that the lead singer was looking for. None of this is explained with much coherence. It all seems a little dark in tone.
This was Toto's
3rd of 5 songs to make it into the top 20, and their only #1 song. I'm not sure that it's my favorite Toto song,
but it still holds up in that you can hear it today on light rock stations.
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