A silly 80s tune, with a synthesizer emulating the African mbira instrument, and kind of nonsense lyrics written by some guy who had never been to Africa, and had just seen some documentary about it on tv. But on the other hand:
🎵🎵 IT’S GONNA TAKE A LOT TO DRAG ME AWAY FROM YOUUU 🎵🎵🎵
It’s pure in a way that could only be pulled off in the 80s. It’s evocative, nostalgic, hopeful, and anthemic.
The song has incredibly become a sort of anthem of the internet:
The singer was nostalgic for a continent he had never been on, and people on the internet are nostalgic for a decade they haven’t experienced.
The lyrics don’t really make sense I think. Is “rises like Olympus” really the best simili to use regarding another mountain? How optimistic is it to expect a random old man you stop on the way, would have some old forgotten words or ancient melodies? I would stop old men on the way all the time, if this was the expectation. But the lyrics are nonetheless kind of cool; a hodgepodge of imagery and sentiments. They make it easy to quote, or make fan theories about, such as that the song is about a werewolf.
There are several full orchestra acapella versions with millions of views on Youtube. There is a sculpture in the Namibian desert that plays the song on repeat for eternity. There is a Twitter account that just tweets out a piece of lyrics to the song every day. Most days get a few retweets, but when it gets to I bless the rains down in Africa, it sometimes takes off. [Instrumental break] is also popular.
According to the guitarist Lukather, the song was almost not put on the album:
“It was a guy named Al Keller, who was over at CBS who convinced us to put it on the disc.”
Thanks Al Keller from CBS. If ever some rando was right about something. Now the song has a billion listens on Spotify, possible more than all other Toto songs put together.
Lovely post. I didn't realize how badly I needed a break from reading and thinking about COVID and COVID policy hysteria.