Saturday, July 11, 2009

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Africa

One thing a lot of these songs of my misspent youth have in common is they keep coming back, year after year, and it's like, when I hear them I have to wonder which time I prefer. Like...roasting in the back of a car, sitting in the dark after lightning struck the ungrounded telephone line and took out one entire circuit, or hitting the worst bout of explosive rage I'd ever accidentally let a few people notice I was having.

There is a Toto song called Africa. It contains a line, "I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become." Guess who thought that was an awesome line? No, me. I thought, "YES. I don't want to be a powerless mopey girl who catches fire all the time!"

Now, if you've seen the video, as I first did back in 1983, you may already be laughing your ass off at the memory of all those huge '80s eyeglass frames and library intrigue rivaled only by The Mummy. Or maybe The Librarian.

But the song figures heavily into little pasty Lynda's life. And yeah, I totally used to spin my globe and try to get it to stop on Chad just like in the video because I am that ridiculous.



If, like me, a hundred men on Mars couldn't pull you away from that song, Andy McKee does a pretty neat acoustic version of the song you should hear if you haven't yet.


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3 comments:

Unknown said...

That was nice. Here's another version that I love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjbpwlqp5Qw&feature=related

Unknown said...

This is one of those songs that always gets stuck in my head when I hear it, but only the chorus. Until I read that line you wrote out I don't think I ever noticed the rest of the lyrics to the song. Now I feel like I was missing out all these years, its such a great tune!

BrideOfPorkins said...

Anne, that Perpetuum Jazzle version is amazing! I was like, "Oh they're snapping that's cute--OMG!" I have a thing for a capella music, and that hit the spot. Thanks so much for that link.

Jenn, I know, the chorus is what always jumped out at me, I think it's the song's (not at all evil) plan.