Friday, January 7, 2011

Cool Stuff #1

The Lion Sleeps Tonight...right?

Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds were a singing group from South Africa in the late '30s/early '40s.  Solomon composed the song "Mbube" or "Lion", which they recorded.  Since his time, their recording has been largely forgotten as Western interpretation ("bastardization", really) of it came into popularity.  Only recently was his family finally given awarded royalties after a long, painful legal battle.


"Lipian Conjuring" by Tool

Tool has been one of my favorite bands for about a decade.  This track, off of their most recent album to date, 2006's "10,000 Days" is supposedly a song from the Lipian Apache natives from the Texas/New Mexico/Colorado area.  There is some debate.  The singer lends his screaming/scrtchy rock vocals to the mix.


"Julia" by The Very Best

I was blindsided by this song.  I was watching my favorite late night talk show (which may also be my favorite show in general...The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and this group was the musical guest.  I was blindsided.  It's catchy and fun: a UK producer with a musician from Malawim known as "The Very Best".  The song "Julia' is about a girl with whom the singer falls in love, but he treats her wrong and she runs away (on a side note, the line of samples from previous songs up to this one is unreal).  The moral is to be careful with love.
Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. Kelly McElrath VanemanJanuary 10, 2011 at 4:12 PM

    Good stuff, Jason. I've always had a real soft spot for "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," so it's neat to hear the original. In fact, I followed up on one of the associated links and got to hear Pete Seeger sing it as well!

    Do be sure to proofread a bit better, specifically for punctuation--just a few obvious typos.

    ReplyDelete
  2. NewerJanuary 10, 2011 at 10:07 PM

    Tool is one of my favorite bands too. I had no idea that the origins of that song are what they are! That is really interesting. It makes me wonder if they tapped into other cultures for their other songs.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anna V. SeilerJanuary 11, 2011 at 9:02 PM

    First off, I watched the Lion King last night, so I automatically thought of the class throughout the movie, and one of my favorite part is when Timon and Pumba sing this song. Also, I am a diehard fan of Tool, and think it's awsome you brought them to everyone's attention.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jason KossolJuly 1, 2012 at 3:47 PM

    Yes, you're correct: I re-read and edited this thing a year-and-a-half later. Judge me how you will.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)