We’re going to look at the story of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”: A song that has been recorded by REM, that featured in a Disney musical, and which can be traced back from a white doo-wop group through a group of Communist folk singers to a man who was exploited by racist South African society - a man who invented an entire genre of music, which got named after his most famous song, but who never saw any of the millions that his song earned for others, and died in poverty. Today we’re going to look at a song that became a worldwide hit in multiple versions, and which I can guarantee everyone listening to this podcast has heard many times. This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. There are, surprisingly, no budget compilations of the Tokens’ music, but this best-of has everything you need. Information on the Tokens came from This is My Story. This is the record of one of the legal actions taken during Weiss’ dispute with Folkways in the late eighties and early nineties. This collection has everything the Weavers recorded before their first split. The Un-Americans: A Tale of the Blacklist by Edward Renehan. Information on Pete Seeger and the Weavers primarily comes from Pete Seeger vs. This collection of early isicathamiya and Mbube music includes several tracks by the Evening Birds. The information about isicathamiya comes from Nightsong: Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa by Veit Erlmann. This 2019 article brings the story of the legal disputes up to date. Rian Malan’s 2000 article on Solomon Linda and The Lion Sleeps Tonight can be found here. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at and ĮRRATUM: I say “Picture in Your Wallet” when I mean “Picture in My Wallet”.Īs always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Tossin’ and Turnin'” by Bobby Lewis. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Download file | Play in new window | Recorded on August 2, 2020Įpisode ninety-two of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens, and at a seventy-year-long story of powerful people repeatedly ripping off less powerful people, then themselves being ripped off in turn by more powerful people, and at how racism meant that a song that earned fifteen million dollars for other people paid its composer ten shillings.
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