The Lyrics

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Permalink Reply by Jacob Oketch on August 6, 2008 at 10:11am

You ranked lowest
But now you are at the top
Because
Your ability
Is beyond calibration

This is the time
To kick the ball
To the victory hall
Where the prize
Awaits your receipt.

Permalink Reply by Carsten Trotzkowski on September 3, 2008 at 3:08pm

DISCUSSION JACOB <=> CARSTEN (pasted from their member pages comments):
=> Everybody, please join in!
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At 11:40am on September 3rd, 2008, Carsten Trotzkowski said…
Moinmoin, Jacob,

great thing we have started the discussion on this topic.
Really thank you for your latest thoughts. You are definitely right what the message should be - for the same reason I also concentrated my music more on the difficult political lyrics up to now, for I think they are most important.

The great challange for us in the AllStarsProject might be to find the right ballance between "soccer fun" and "political message", which won't go hand in hand at first sight.

Examples:

* "Biko" by Peter Gabriel is a political one, and one of the greatest songs against apartheid IMHO, still lyrics & music style would be the opposite of a (soccer) hymn.

* Scorpion's "Winds of Change" are better in this, since they have a lot of hidden hints in their lyrics without talking too straight, so that song is more fun.

* "Give Me Hope, Joanna" by Eddy Grant is still most surpising to me, since he has straight talk about sad apartheid reality in the lyrics, but greatest fun in the music. For a German like me that is very difficult to reproduce in a new song, since we might appear to take it all far too serious ;-) Still that is what I'm hoping to learn here, how to put up this special attitude.

Do you see a way to include our message in clever lyrics so that "fun for soccer" can join "fun for victory over apartheid"? Is this also a desirable goal for you?

:-) Carsten (-:
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Comment At 10:22am on September 3rd, 2008, Jacob Oketch said…

Hey Carsten,
I share your concerns regarding the rainbow issue with regard to refrain.South Africa has had the problem of the worst kind of racism in apartheid,now that they have overcome it,i think it would be best to come up with a symbol that signifies this unity of purpose.I would suggest a call to catch the ball together as one,suggesting some sort of victory in arresting the monster of apartheid as one would prevent the ball from entering the goal,stopping all her opponentsfrom winning is like stopping the spread of the cancer of aparheid,how is that?Am just making a suggestion to that end,
Best regards,
Jacob.
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Comment At 5:04pm on August 28th, 2008, Carsten Trotzkowski said…

Moin, Jacob,

that rainbow question is difficult for me to handle. Since South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation (we already have songs with Rainbow Scatterings, Rainbow Bus etc.), this appears to be a fixed "terminus". At least German Wikipedia also refers the term "Regenbogennation" to SA.

On the one hand, this is a perfect fit for any poet (poets are supposed to love rainbows :-) ), on the other hand I fear that everybody will be using that rainbow thing so we might have a kind of inflation on that term... Therefore, we might discuss if we have alternative hooks for a refrain, since there must be more... they must have other cool things in SA besides rainbows!

Please note: Although a rainbow may look like a strange soccer goal, it is not advisable to shoot a ball through it, since you a) Will need some Mega-Newtons of force to do it, and 2) never succeed because you simply can't verify if the ball has surpassed the goal line... :-)))

I know so little about (South-) Africa, so I better ask....

:-) Carsten (-:

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Comment At 10:04am on August 28th, 2008, Jacob Oketch said…

Hi Carsten,
Thanks for your message.Well,the second option'let us play the rainbow march'works for me in the sense that the image of the rainbow is poetically potent with an appropriate image for a global encounter.What do you think?

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Comment At 12:28pm on August 27th, 2008, Carsten Trotzkowski said…

Moin, Jacob,

thank you once again for supporting the idea of joining forces for a soccer woldcup hmyn. I think the poetry you supplied is great, and I hope we will find sounds for many of your lines.

If you don't mind, I have a question: What would be the best hook for an African soccer hymn: You see - every famous hymn has a short and pregnant statement that dominates the refrain, just that thing that all listeners want to sing along with. So the question is: What would describe the African attitude to soccer best? Would it be "We all have won - b'yond the African sun"? Or would the SA event better be suited by something like "Let us play the rainbow match!"?

What would you say?

:-) Carsten (-: