‘Zimbabwe’

Anger is a powerful driver when it comes to writing a song. Prejudice, discrimination and injustice  make my blood boil and when I wrote this song, the political situation in Zimbabwe  was rife for a rant!.

It’s hard to know where the song ‘Zimbabwe’ song truly started. Did it start with the horrific behaviour of Robert Mugabe  and his supporters following the first round of the Presidential election in 2008? He was running against Morgan Tsvangirai but lost the first round by 43.2% to 47.9%. Because neither candidate achieved 50%, a second round was needed. In the intervening period there was mass violence against supporters of Tsvangirai by Mugabe supporters. In the end, Tsvangirai withdraw, calling it a ‘violent sham’ and Mugabe won a landslide. It seemed to me that the rest of the world just chose to ignore it.

Did it start a year earlier when I visited an old musician friend of mine in Germany?

John Pearse originally hailed from Hook in Yorkshire, but grew up in Prestatyn in North Wales. After a period working for the Martin Guitar Company, he eventually settled in Besigheim, Germany. John was a major influence on me, helping me a tremendous amount when I became a professional. He performed the role of influencer for countless others when he presented the 1960s BBC 2 show ‘Hold Down a Chord’ and German magazine Stern even described him as “the nation’s guitar teacher“. To hear some of his work on Youtube, click here.  Incidentally, after john died one of his guitars was bequeathed to me. You can hear me playing his beautiful 1930s vintage Martin guitar, homepage of this website and also other tunes on his guitar by visiting my YouTube channel.

Anyway, back to my visit to Germany in 2007 to see John and his wife Linda. Whilst there, I got to play with very talented and fascinating African musicians. Two of whom came from Zimbabwe, so their homeland situation was on my mind.

Or, did it just start when I was noodling around on a riff that bore a slight resemblance to the T.Rex song, ‘Jeepster’? Unlike Jeepster, my riff was in a minor key and eventually deviates substantially from Marc Bolan’s original.

Certainly, the tune came first, which is often the case with my songs. I think it’s possible all these things just came together – the African musicians in Germany, Mugabe’s ‘victory’ in 2008, and my riff. My anger was there below the surface, pushing me forward to find words of expression. Well,  Mugabe and Zimbabwe almost rhyme, then the rest almost wrote itself – “dirty regime and killing machine, torture opposition, starve the population, at the end of a rifle, vote for me.” It is almost a rant; certainly not an intelligent or academic assessment of the then political situation.

In total, the song took about a day to write. I compose longhand, with the guitar on my lap. The song was then recorded at my friend Terry Jones’ home studio. The room is small, essentially a soundproof box, and I played in the dark to get that claustrophobic feel. The percussion was later added by Danny Mallon in New York (Facebook). I had met him several years earlier when he toured with the Woody Mann Trio. His percussion on this track is wonderful, it gives me images of Africa – snakes, heat and intense rhythms.

As an expression of anger and frustration at injustice, I’d describe this song as a success – Billy Bragg endorsed it and Amnesty International showed interest. When I uploaded the track to Youtube, I received an email from the Zimbabwean High Commission asking me to remove it and stop playing the song. So I always played it at my gigs. Hear it on Youtube, here. or to hear a section of ‘Zimbabwe’ (from the album ‘Have a Taste of This!)’, click below:

 

‘Have a Taste of This!’ can be bought directly from me, here, or downloaded via iTunes and Amazon.

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