Springbok Hit Parade Vol 1: SA Songs Covered

Do you remember when you stopped believing in Father Christmas? And do you remember when you first realised that Springbok Hits records didn’t feature the original artists? Quite remarkably, a series of records comprising session-musician covers of contemporary hits, not only shifted enough copies to make a profit, but actually sold hundreds of thousands of albums over a period of more than fifteen years, and became as much a part of the South African musical landscape as CNA record bars and the Pop Shop television show.

The Springbok Hit Parade series was conceived by Ken Talbot, making its debut in 1970 with the goal of providing South African consumers with affordable and accessible music hits. The series was inspired by the Springbok Radio Top Twenty on Springbok Radio on Friday nights, hosted by David Gresham. Released by MFP (Music For Pleasure), the series was initially produced by Robert Schröder, followed by Gresham, and later by Mike Pilot, who oversaw its final volumes in the 1980s.

It was a sort of coming-of-age thing for many (especially white) South Africans – to buy at least one Springbok Hit Parade LP – preferably from CNA or the OK Bazaars, where often low price special deals were on offer. And the series itself seemed to come of age in a sexist way, moving from animated art work to actual Scope Magazine-like photographs of scantily dressed women (the transition happened in early 1976, on Springbok Hit Parade no 26). The models were always white women: after all, these were Springbok hits, and only white people were allowed to be formally represented by the springbok – whether playing rugby, cricket, or posing on the cover of a Springbok Hit Parade record. However, black musicians could be covered by session musicians on the records, as is seen on this mixtape which includes songs originally performed by Joy, Lionel Petersen, Pacific Express, Letta Mbulu, Margaret Singana, and Steve Kekana.

The only significant change to the branding of this series was in early 1980 when the Springbok Hit Parade records became simply Springbok records, the first to mark this change being Springbok 47.

For many, the relationship with Springbok Hits follows the trajectory of a romance novel: we fell in love with Springbok hits records, thinking they were the real thing (we bought a few or more) and we had wonderful times together, but then alas, we discovered that Springbok Hits had cheated on us, they weren’t what they said they said were. We hated session covers, and we discovered they were exactly what we hated. So we broke up. The break up was sudden and it was nasty. They became a source of embarrassment and regret. Then many, many years later, we rekindled fond memories of them. We reminisce about them with our family and friends, we even begin to romanticise them. We discover that some of the sessions musicians were renowned South African musicians, and they were often good versions of songs. Some of us even hook up with ones we grew up with, giving them a curious listen on a lonely Friday night at home.

For this mixtape we have put together 20 Springbok Hit Parade sessions versions of songs originally released by South African musicians. Was that the mark of success? To feature on a Springbok Hit Parade album? You can decide! In the list of songs below we include the original South African artists, and the Springbok Hit Parade record on which each appeared.

  1. Ain’t Gonna Stop Til We Get To The Top (Joy, 47)
  2. Grips Of Emotion (Lesley Rae Dowling, 57)
  3. Man On The Moon (Ballyhoo, 51)
  4. Better The Devil You Know (Stingray, 46)
  5. Nightmare (Peach, 54)
  6. Tokoloshe Man (John Kongos, 5)
  7. Blue Water (Julian Laxton Band, 32)
  8. Buccaneer (Mccully Workshop, 37)
  9. You’ve Got All Of Me (Clout, 41)
  10. Charlie (Rabbitt, 29)
  11. Ek Verlang Na Jou (Sonja Herholdt, 23)
  12. Bouncy Bouncy Bounce (Lionel Petersen, 25)
  13. Give A Little Love (Pacific Express, 42)
  14. I Need Your Love (Letta Mbulu, 9)
  15. Mama Temba’s Wedding (Maragret Singana, 19)
  16. Feel So Strong (Hotline & Steve Kekana, 62)
  17. Vyfster (Lloyd Ross, 63)
  18. You’re Living Inside My Head (John Ireland, 42)
  19. Face In The Mirror (Century, 45)
  20. Paradise Road (Joy, 49)

South African Musicians Covering South African Songs

Covers are an integral part of popular music. Some bands make a living out of playing covers, some musicians even make a career imitating another musician or band, covering their repertoire or a specific period of their music. This can take place the form of reduplication covers, in which live performances are approximated as closely as possible. Most commonly, musicians simply cover one or more songs by other performers during their career.

We have decided to celebrate cover versions of songs which are in some way related to South Africa. In this – the first mixtape – we are focusing on South African songs covered by South African musicians. The second will focus on foreign songs covered by South African musicians, and the third will feature South African songs covered by foreign musicians.

There are many motivations for covering another’s song, one of which is simply to choose a song which can make money, but often it has to do with paying homage to the original song or performer, and many of the songs included here fit that description. These songs tend to show a great deal of respect to the original version, in terms of tempo, melody and lyrics. Here one can include songs like Arno Carstens’ cover of Ballyhoo’s “Man On The Moon”, Johannes Kerkorrel’s cover of Bernoldus Niemand’s “Snor City”, Zim  Ngqawana’s cover of Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Chisa”, Miriam Makeba’s version of Hugh Masekela’s “Soweto Blues”, QKumba Zoo’s cover of Bright Blue’s “Weeping”, Sharon Katz & the Peace Train and Dorothy Masuka’s version of “Meadowlands”, made famous by Nancy Jacobs and her Sisters, African Jazz Pioneers & Thembi Mtshali’s cover of Miriam Makeba’s “Pata Pata”, David Kramer’s version of Roger Lucey’s “Dry Wine” , Urban Creep’s interpretation of the Cherry Faced Lurchers’ “Shot Down”, Vusi Mahlasela’s cover of James Phillips’ “Africa Is Dying”, Jennifer Ferguson’s version of David Marks’ “Master Jack” (made famous in South Africa by Four Jacks And A Jill), Tony Cox’s cover of Edi Niederlander’s “Ancient Dust Of Africa”, Sonja Herholdt’s cover of David Kramer’s “Skipskop”, Matthew Van Der Want and Chris Letcher’s cover of the Springbok Nude Girls’ “Blue Eyes”, Laurika Rauch’s version of Koos Kombuis’ “Liza Se Klevier” and Tonia Selley’s interpretation of another Koos Kombuis song, this time “Onder In My Whiskeyglas”.

Several artist included here have paid homage to Johnny Clegg’s music (whether with Juluka or as a solo artist). None of the covers included here have tried to imitate the crossover (Zulu-Western folk-rock) style of Johnny Clegg’s music and so while these songs remain true to the sentiment of the originals, they take them in to a different stylistic terrain. These include the acapella version of “Impi” by Not The Midnight Mass, and the rockier versions of “Great Heart” by Hog Hoggidy Hog, “Africa” by Wonderboom and “December African Rain” by the Springbok Nude Girls.

Two songs on this mixtape are an interesting form of cover song in which the cover versions include musicians who were part of the original version. David Kramer joins Jack Parow in his cover of Kramer’s “Biscuit And Biltong” while several members of the Gereformeerde Blues Band join with Arno Carstens and others to cover “Liefde”, originally recorded by the Gereformeerde Blues Band.

There are also socially interesting covers included here. Bernoldus Niemand turns the Radio Rats’ fairly international-sounding “Welcome To My Car” into a truly South African song, especially through his use of South African accent in his vocals. By joining together to cover the Freedom Children’s “Tribal Fence”,  Margaret Singana and Rabbitt go some way towards crossing the tribal fence they sing about. Finally, by sampling Hotline’s “Jabulani”, Prophets Of Da City, a Western Cape coloured hip hop band playfully pay homage to a commercially successful  white western/black neotraditional crossover song. To what extent their sampling of “Jabulani” becomes a cover (or not) is something to ponder.

We have thoroughly enjoyed compiling this selection of covers in which South African musicians have celebrated great South African songwriting and performance. So many emotions and moods are captured through these interpretations. We hope it drives you to go in search of some of the originals you haven’t heard, or even to re-listen to the originals as a matter of comparison. Also let us know if we have left out any of your favourite SA covers of SA songs: there’s bound to be a part two to this particular theme.

  1. Man On The Moon – Arno Carstens
  2. Liefde – Die Lemme
  3. Welcome To My Car – Bernoldus Niemand
  4. Snor City – Johannes Kerkorrel
  5. Chisa – Zim  Ngqawana
  6. Soweto Blues – Miriam Makeba
  7. Weeping – Qkumba Zoo
  8. Meadowlands – Sharon Katz & The Peace Train And Dorothy Masuka
  9. Pata Pata – African Jazz Pioneers & Thembi Mtshali
  10. Impi – Not The Midnight Mass
  11. Jabulani – Prophets Of Da City
  12. Great Heart – Hog Hoggidy Hog
  13. Africa – Wonderboom
  14. December African Rain – Springbok Nude Girls
  15. Tribal Fence – Rabbitt & Margaret Singana
  16. Dry Wine – David Kramer
  17. Shot Down – Urban Creep
  18. Africa Is Dying – Vusi Mahlasela
  19. Master Jack – Jennifer Ferguson
  20. Ancient Dust Of Africa – Tony Cox
  21. Skipskop – Sonja Herholdt
  22. Biscuits & Biltong – Jack Parow
  23. Lisa Se Klavier – Laurika Rauch
  24. Onder In My Whiskeyglas – Tonia Selley
  25. Blue Eyes – Van Der Want/Letcher

Boy From The Suburbs

“What the @$%! was that1” asks Leon Lazarus as he invites you to listen to his personal mixtape of the sounds around him growing up in the suburbs of Johannesburg in the 70s and 80s, before setting out into the world, but his ears still tuned to the Southern Hemisphere. From Springbok Radio Pop to Punk to New Wave to Rock and Folk in the 70s, 80s, an 90s, this was the soundtrack to his upbringing in South Africa.

Clout – Substitute
This is where I begin. I was only four when the song dropped into the charts and yet I remember singing along to it with my siblings. It was a brilliant piece of pop music making and deserved its place in the international charts. I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Cindy Alter a few years back, and I was completely start-struck.

Jessica Jones – Sunday, Monday, Tuesday
This is another piece of pop genius and an enduring earworm that I could sing along to fifty years after hearing it for the first time. I was only six when it came out, but my sisters had the single playing on repeat, so it is now fused with my DNA.

Maria – Clap Your Hands, Stamp Your Feet
You know that every seven-year-old would be clapping and stamping along to this South African pop classic. Back in 1973, this song was everywhere and remained on heavy rotation at least until I sprouted hairs in parts unknown.

Glenys Lynne – Ramaja
This was the first Afrikaans language song that didn’t drive me round the bend. In primary school, Afrikaans was already a problematic language for me. It brought with it all sorts of complications. As a Jewish kid in a government school, I was forced to sit through sermons delivered by domienees, sing the national anthem (which I refused after a time), and attend veld-school where a neo-Nazi took pleasure in beating the spit out of us. When I found myself enjoying this song, I was as surprised as the next person. I am sure I wouldn’t have admitted that in 1976.

Ipi nTombi – Mama Thembu’s Wedding
This was the very first live stage show I was taken to, back in 1976. It was the year in which my primary school was sent home for fear of the unrest spilling over from nearby Alexandra Township. I clearly recall walking through the grounds of the Civic Theater in Johannesburg and climbing the steps to the enormous lobby. I remember the excitement of finding our seats, and the curtain going up. Most of all, I remember Margaret Singana’s spectacular performance. Despite it being a controversial musical about the plight of black women and their migrant men written by two white women, the music continues to hold a special place in my heart.

Paradise Road – Joy
A black all girl group singing a beautiful, touching, and immensely enjoyable song was an important step along my path to shrugging off the decades of bullshit we had been fed by the Apartheid government. At a time when the country was tearing itself apart, this brave song had us singing along. Looking back, the chorus was wonderfully subversive: “There are better days before us and a burning bridge behind, fire smoking, the sky is blazing. There’s a woman waiting, weeping and a young man nearly beaten, all for love. Paradise was almost closing down.”

Rabbitt – Charlie
My sister-in-law was one of the hundreds of screaming fans that camped outside the Duncan Faure’s house back in the 70’s. She and I got on like a house on fire, and her infatuation with the band was catching. I like the band enough to be able to sing along, but I think they needed to find a place on this list more for the fact that they were ever present in my life through the late 70’s and early 80’s.

Ballyhoo – Man On The Moon
This song makes it into the list by osmosis. I was not a huge fan of Ballyhoo, but jolling in Joburg during the 80’s, you couldn’t escape them. If you walked through Hillbrow on the way to a disco or bar, you were bound to hear Ballyhoo spilling out onto the street from a dinner club or music venue. After a while, they just became part of the wallpaper, and then you found yourself humming the damned tune.

éVoid:- Shadows
I spent my teenage years in a club called DV8, drinking, smoking, and generally being a hooligan. éVoid regularly made an appearance in the basement dive and never failed to bring the house down. Shadows was their biggest hit, and it brings back the fondest of memories.

Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse – Burn Out
I know, I know. You’ve heard it a million times. Make it a million and one. I love the song because it is so tightly intertwined with a memory that I recall like it was yesterday. My buddy Steven and I are gunning it down Louis Botha Avenue in Johannesburg at about 3am, on our way to a dice at the Pickin’ Chickin, and I do my radio DJ song ID over the iconic intro to Burn Out. Man, good times!

David Kramer – Botteltjie Blou
After matriculating, I started a law degree though Unisa and studied at the RAU library in Johannesburg. That’s where I first took notice of David Kramer. His posters were everywhere on campus, I remember getting a copy of Bakgat! from the record library and falling in love with it. I became a fan. To this day I have the same reaction as I did the first time I heard Botteltjie Blou. It is a sad song that pierces deep. I am instantly reminded of the terrible wave of deaths associated with the consumption of methylated spirits in the early 80’s. Back then, we spoke about it with a “shame, hey,” but the better I understood the world, the more I grasped how landless, poor, desperate, and brutalized people would go to any lengths to dull the pain, even drinking meths through a half-loaf.

Mango Groove – Pennywhistle
In the early 80’s, just out of matric, my circle of friends used to hang out at a club in Norwood called Quavers. It was a reasonably priced Jazz venue with great murals and a small stage in the corner. Steve, Mel, Lee, Gav and all the rest of us were regulars and could be found there at least once or twice a week downing flaming Sambucas with coffee beans floating in them, or late-night Irish coffees. Mango Groove was a regularly featured band and we landed up seeing them at least ten or fifteen times. It must be said that a good part of our gang lusted after Claire Johnston, so maybe the Sambuca wasn’t the only draw. Lacking sex appeal but perhaps the more memorable member of the group was Mickey Vilakazi, the trombonist. A showman with his instrument, he was both brilliant and fun to watch. Great memories.

Juluka – Thandiwe
I first saw Juluka perform live at the Free Peoples Concert on the WITS University sports fields. It wasn’t the last time. I was lucky enough to see the band bring the house down a few years later at Grahamstown’s Settlers Monument theater, and I attended Cleggs final farewell concert in San Diego. I remember hearing the song Thandiwe for the first time when my older brother and his friends had African Litany on the Hi-Fi. I can’t be sure, but today it feels like that was the moment I found the link between the music that was coming from Freddy’s PM9 powered record player in the back yard and the popular music on my radio. In the end, Juluka turned out to be crucial in shaping my attitude to Apartheid. Their songs helped break down my ideas of what being African meant and set in concrete my resolve to defy the SADF draft and do what I could to affect a different outcome in South Africa.
Johannes Kerkorrel en die Gereformeerde Blues Band – Ossewa
When the Voelvry tour came to Grahamstown in 1989, it was a lightbulb moment for me. Here was a group of Afrikaners who were pissed off about the same things I was. Even better, they played rock and blues and they were satirical and wry. It ticked all the boxes for me. I could have chosen a more political song from the tour, but honestly, I cracked up when I heard Ossewa for the first time. My family ran a motor spares shop in Edenvale, so the thought of cruising to Transkei at 160km/h in a V6 ox wagon with Elvis playing on the tape deck was brilliant!

Jack Parow – Cooler as Ekke
Jack Parow is one of those guys that figured out Afrikaans rap was waiting for a champion and a sense of humor couldn’t hurt. This is one of those songs that will remain evergreen for me.

Jack Parow and Valiant Swart – Tema Van Jou Lied
And then, Jack Parow showed his softer side by working with Valiant Swart to turn a well-crafted song into something extraordinarily touching and beautiful.

Vusi Mahlasela – Say Africa
The song Say Africa was written and originally performed by Dave Goldblum and appeared on his album Valley Road in 1997. Vusi Mahlasela took an already brilliant song and turned it into an iconic South Africa anthem. I find myself singing the chorus every now and again, especially when I am feeling a little homesick.

Urban Creep – Shot Down
I have always been a fan and admirer of Chris Letcher, not least of all because I had the pleasure of playing on a stage at his side. The fleeting moment our band went supernova at Jameson’s remains one of my most treasured memories. But he has never been better than when he paired up with Brendan Jury in Urban Creep. It gives me chills.

Springbok Nude Girls – Blue Eyes
I fell for SNG long after everyone else had. When I first heard Blue Eyes, I was already in the United States back in the early 2000’s. The song begins as a serene lullaby and then explodes into its signature fuzz. It is beautiful throughout and reminds me of a passionate argument with someone you love.

One Large Banana – Leave This Town
You might think I say this because I count Brett as my closest pal, but I have always loved his first EP Don’t Feed the Animals. It captures a moment in South African music and Grahamstown’s college vibe. I like to think it would have been the music I’d have been playing had we continued together in a band. More than anything, the songs are bloody catchy and turn into earworms immediately. A nod to Gareth Sweetman on Drums whose dad passed away recently, John Taylor on Guitar who is now quite respectable, and the smooth Jo Edwards with the golden pipes.

Songs About South African Places

To mark Heritage Day we have chosen a playlist of songs by South African musicians about South African places. Something homely to cuddle up with, or if you’re feeling active, to jive to. There are far more songs about South African places than we can fit on one mixtape, but we hope this is a good representation of songs and places. It’s a starting point: there will be more to come in this series where music and places meet.

There are all sorts of reasons someone could write and perform a song about a place. Often it is out of fondness, sometimes out of loathing or frustration, or simply because it is where one happens to be when a moment of song-writing inspiration hits. And at times it could be ironic, out of both loathing and attraction, where one isn’t entirely sure which it is.

The twenty songs on this mixtape begin in Cape Town, with Sabenza’s “CT Blues” and then Dollar Brand’s iconic “Mannenberg”, both of which feature Basil Coetzee. We end our stay in the Western Cape with Hotep Idris Galeta’s “Cape Town Before Midnight” before travelling north east along the coast to “Ebhayi”, as celebrated by Ami Faku. Then it is to the KwaZulu-Natal coast for Trans.Sky’s song about “Durban Poison” and Urban Creep’s “Sea Level”, both of those songs feature Brendan Jury and both are somewhat ambivalent about Durban, as many residents are. In 1977 Rabbitt were asked to write the theme tune for a new tv programme – The Dingleys – about a bookshop in Pietermaritzburg. Although the shop is fictional, Rabbitt nevertheless captured various aspects of Pietermaritzburg which remind us of the city at that time.

Next we move up to the Gauteng region for the remainder of the mixtape, starting with the Radio Rats’ celebration of Springs in “East Rand Town Called Springs” and then onto a series of Soweto-themed songs: “Orlando” by Miriam Makeba & the Skylarks, “Soweto Inn” by the Movers, Sipho Mabuse’s “Jive Soweto” and Tribe After Tribe’s “Suburb In The South”. Just a short drive from Soweto is the southern suburb of Rosettenville to which Van der Want/Letcher pay homage in the satirical “Rosettenville Blues”. The Julian Laxton Band contribute the offbeat “Johannesburg” and the Gereformeerde Blues Band pay tribute to Hillbrow with a classic Voëlvry song of that name. Then on to “Living In Yeoville” by the Aeroplanes, a song which will tweak on the heartstrings of lefties who lived in Yeoville in the 1980s and 1990s.

Lesego Rampolokeng & the Kalahari Surfers bring us back down to earth with “Johannesburg”, a city where dreams come to die. We move north east with Moses Molelekwa’s “Spirit Of Tembisa” and further north east again with Vusi Mahlasela’s tribute to Mamelodi, “Hello Mams”. James Phillips as Bernoldus Niemand ends things with his ironic tribute to Pretoria (as it was then), “Snor City”, about the growth of hair above the lip of every white man who passed him by on the street. As he lamented, the longer he waited, the more his hope diminishes.

Thanks to South African musicians for writing and performing songs that have become the soundtrack of our lives, and for those moments, celebrated on this mixtape, when creativity captures this place we come from.

  1. CT Blues – Sabenza
  2. Mannenberg – Dollar Brand
  3. Cape Town After Midnight – Hotep Idris Galeta
  4. Ebhayi – Ami Faku
  5. Durban Poison – Trans.Sky
  6. Sea Level – Urban Creep
  7. Dingley’s Bookshop – Rabbitt
  8. East Rand Town Called Springs – Radio Rats
  9. Orlando – Miriam Makeba & the Skylarks
  10. Soweto Inn – The Movers
  11. Jive Soweto – Sipho Mabuse
  12. Suburb in the South – Tribe After Tribe
  13. Rosettenville blues – Van der Want/Letcher
  14. Johannesburg – Julian Laxton Band
  15. Hillbrow – Gereformeerde Blues Band
  16. Living in Yeoville – The Aeroplanes
  17. Johannesburg – Lesego Rampolokeng & the Kalahari Surfers
  18. Spirit of Tembisa – Moses Molelekwa
  19. Hello Mams – Vusi Mahlasela
  20. Snor City – Bernoldus Niemand

Censorship – To Get Played On The SABC, Watch What You Say

So far the censorship series has explored how the apartheid state’s Directorate of Publications and South African Broadcasting Corporation censored music in South Africa. This mixtape considers how state censorship in turn placed pressure on record companies and artists to regulate music in the form of self-censorship.

Immense pressure was placed on record companies to ensure that albums weren’t controversial. Failure to do so was likely to result in music either being banned outright by the Directorate and/or not receiving airplay on the SABC and independent radio stations. The buying public would be unlikely to hear the music, almost definitely resulting in financial loss for the record companies. As a consequence of the maze of formal censorship to be negotiated, record companies (especially the majors) were cautious about what they would record and, in turn, placed pressure on musicians to tone down their lyrics if they wanted their music recorded and released.

All the examples on this mixtape are of self-censorship in advance of government or SABC intervention. So we won’t be including instances such as songs left off an album after the album was banned by the Directorate of Publications in a censored re-release of the album, such as happened with Peter Tosh’s Equal Rights album after it was banned because of the song “Apartheid”. CBS then re-released the album without the banned track.

This mixtape begins with a bizarre example of self-censorship, where the South African distributor, Atlantic Recording Corporation, decided that the line “fuck a star” from the Rolling Stones’ chorus for “Star Star” (itself a censored title on the original UK release) could likely lead the album to be banned by the Directorate of Publications. As a compromise they decided to obscure the word ‘fuck’ by adding a drumbeat every time ‘fuck’ was uttered. The result was bizarre , as you can hear. Likewise, when the record company wanted to release Don Gibson’s Sensual Woman album they were concerned that the Directorate of Publications would ban the album because of the word ‘sensual’ (this was the early 1970s after all). They got Gibson to re-record the title track replacing ‘sensual woman’ with ‘beautiful woman’ and they also changed the album title accordingly.

In the case of Roger Lucey’s debut album, The Road is Much Longer, 3rd Ear Music received legal advice to the effect that, in terms of security legislation, some of the statements on the album could lead to long-term prison sentences and/or heavy fines for both Roger Lucey and Dave Marks of 3rd Ear Music. As a result two versions of the album were released. One of two omissions on the commercial release of the album was a verse of “You Only Need Say Nothing”:

There’s teargas at the funeral
Of a boy gunned down by cops
They say there’s too many mourners
And this is where it stops
Then they bring on the boots and the batons
And the blood runs fear and cold
And the moral of the story
Is to do what you are told

In several instances a song was simply omitted from an album in order to avoid possible censorship. In the mid-1960s Louis Armstrong’s “You are woman, I am man” was left off the South African release of his Hello Dolly album, presumably because of the line “You are woman, I am man. Let’s kiss”. For good measure, the first South African pressing also removed Louis Armstrong’s photograph from the album cover, presumably to hide the fact that he was black. This would have been more for sales than censorship reasons, London Records being afraid that (musically ignorant) racist whites would not buy the album if they knew the singer was black.

Jose Feliciano begins his 1969 Alive O album, with a short guitar rendition of “God Save the Queen” which was omitted from the South African release. Teal Record Company was clearly concerned that the British national anthem would irk the South African authorities, just years after the country’s departure from the British Commonwealth. In the 1980s EMI omitted “Burden of Shame” from UB40’s Signing Off album. The song criticized Britain’s supportive role of the apartheid government. In further examples, the songs “Tribute to Steve Biko” by Tapper Zukie and “South African Enlistment” by the Abyssinians were left off the South African releases of the Frontline II and Frontline III reggae compilations respectively. Both song expressed anti-apartheid attitudes. And “Mandela” was one of two songs which Mountain Records omitted from Aaron Davis’ Neon Bible album.

Anticipating problems at the SABC over Mi-Sex’s name, CBS released the group’s “Computer Games” single under the name ‘M.S.’ However, given that the Directorate was unlikely to ban an album on the basis of Mi-Sex’s name, the album Graffiti Crimes was released under the band’s full name. Culture Club’s “The Church of the Poison Mind” was released as a single entitled “Poison Mind” out of concern that the SABC censors would view the original title as blasphemous. When Santana’s Freedom album was released in South Africa the instrumental song “Mandela” was changed to “Mandel” to avoid using the name of South Africa’s most famous political prisoner.

Several South African musicians experienced record company pressure to censor their albums. For example, Neil Solomon, whose debut album The Occupant was released by WEA, changed the song “Strangler” to “Stranger” to improve the song’s chances of radio play. Juluka recorded their first album, Universal Men, in 1979, a few months before Zimbabwe’s independence. When recording the song “Sky People”, the line “The drums of Zimbabwe speak” was changed it to ‘The drums of Zambezi speak’ for fear that the reference to changes in Zimbabwe rolling into South Africa was too overt.

Rabbitt recorded a cover version of Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath” for airplay, and changed the line “got him by the balls” to “got him by the horns”. Another Jo’burg Records band, the Radio Rats, were persuaded to change their song “Fucking About in the Dungeons All Day” to “Mucking About in the Dungeons All Day” in order to avoid censorship. Freedom’s Children were persuaded to change the name of the song “The Kid He Came From Nazareth” to the absurd “The Kid He Came From Hazareth” because Parlophone feared censorial repercussions for blasphemous reasons.

Some musicians avoided overt political references by writing symbolically about South African politics. One of the most famous examples was a play on wording by Chicco (Sello Twala) on his single “We miss you Manelow”, a slightly disguised reference to Nelson Mandela which was understood by many listeners.

Joseph Shabalala claimed to have written symbolic songs about the South African political situation. For example, Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s 1973 song “Nomathemba”, a song about a girl who Shabalala described as a symbol of hope. Shabalala said he was actually referring to South Africa though: that people should not lose hope and come together.
Equally cryptic was Steve Kekana’s song “The Bushman” about a hunter-gatherer who taught himself to shoot with a bow and arrow:

He lives under a tree
Hides himself and sleeps
His mind is tuned to be aware of danger
He never makes mistakes
Survival is his way
At nights he plays a song an a wooden kalimba
Wo ho the bushman
He fights like a man should do
He strives like a man should do…

These sentiments complied with apartheid notions of blacks as primitive and the song was played on SABC. However, Kekana explained that he wasn’t referring to a real “bushman” but rather to ANC guerrillas.

Nevertheless, the more cryptic the symbolism was, the less likely listeners were to realize there was anything resistant about the song at all, in which case, in terms of political sentiments, the song might as well have been left off the album altogether. The most troublesome aspect of formal censorship then, is the way censors’ actions begin to mess with artists’ creativity, so that they begin to police their own output. When this happens, censors have realized their ultimate goal.

  1. Star Star – Rolling Stones
  2. Mucking Around The Dungeons – Radio Rats
  3. Locomotive Breath – Rabbitt
  4. The Kid He Came From Hazareth – Freedom’s Children
  5. The Stranger – Neill Solomon 
  6. Sky People – Juluka 
  7. South African Enlistment – The Abyssinians 
  8. Tribute To Steve Biko – Taper Zukie
  9. Burden Of Shame – UB40
  10. The Bushman – Steve Kekana
  11. We Miss You Manelow – Chicco
  12. Church Of The Poison Mind – Culture Club
  13. Computer Games – Mi Sex
  14. Mandela – Santana
  15. Mandela – Aaron Davis
  16. You Are Woman, I Am Man – Louis Armstrong
  17. Nomathemba – Ladysmith Black Mambazo
  18. You Only Need Say Nothing – Roger Lucey
  19. Beautiful Woman – Don Gibson
  20. God Save The Queen – Jose Feliciano