Found Objects N°21

German singer-songwriter Joy Denalane (born to a South African father who's a cousin of Hugh Masekela) recorded her song 'Im Ghetto von Soweto' twice. I prefer the original, less explanatory, German version (a tentative translation of which I'm including below) to the later English adaptation (rewritten for an international audience, I assume — it has some extra lines at pains to explain why, for example, one of the figures in her lyrics was detained). Masekela himself also contributed to the song and features in the above video they shot in Soweto in 2003, mixing it with archival material.

This is auntie Jane's house

When the first shots were fired

Come in quickly, my child, and don't cry

Lie down on the kitchen floor

This is Orlando West

in June 1976

See the school kids run

The boy Pieterson

The police are shooting them

A stone flies, a shoe drops

A car burns, a child runs

Images everyone here knows

When the brown dust settles

What remains is the grey smoke in the air

In the ghetto, ghetto of Soweto

This is auntie Nancy's house

She wanted to do Karabo's laundry

He nearly missed the train in the morning

She pulls his pass from his jacket's pocket

'84 in Diepkloof

It's already been a week

Did anybody see whether they took him

To prison at John Vorster Square?

They stopped him, he doesn't have a pass

They took him, and put him in jail

Only now did she find out

When the red dust settles

What remains is the brown smoke in the air

In the ghetto, ghetto of Soweto

It should have been a day of joy

At auntie Eve's house

The daughter gave birth to a child that night

But both are lost

They are positive

In Moroka, Pimville, Dube…

No house is safe

They battled apartheid but then came Aids

And they fight it in 2002

It used to be TBC from the mines

Today they're infected with HIV

I'm talking about every second pregnant woman

When the brown dust settles

What remains is the grey smoke in the air

In Soweto

Stands Auntie's house…