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Morning Open Thread featuring 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-14
Morning Open Thread is a daily, copyrighted post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.
Instead of the Tuesday blank slate diary (in lieu of MOT emeritus P Carey) , I wrote this one about a topic I found to be interesting. The song ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ has an interesting history, here’s a summary of that, with a lot of words redacted for ‘fair use’.
All words below from this Wikipedia link: Wiki Lion
"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is a song originally written and first recorded in 1939 by Solomon Linda under the title "Mbube" (the Zulu word for ‘lion’).
According to journalist Rian Malan: "'Mbube' wasn't the most remarkable tune, but there was something terribly compelling about the underlying chant, a dense meshing of low male voices above which Solomon yodeled and howled for two exhilarating minutes, occasionally making it up as he went along. The third take was the great one, but it achieved immortality only in its dying seconds, when Solly took a deep breath, opened his mouth and improvised the melody..."
It was first recorded in the United States by The Weavers in November 1951, and published under the title "Wimoweh" in December of the same year.
In 1961, a version named “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, adapted into English by the doo-wop group The Tokens, became a number-one hit in the United States.
Lyrics of Linda's original version were written in Zulu, while those from The Tokens' adaptation were written by George David Weiss.
Issued as a 78-rpm phonograph record and marketed to black audiences, "Mbube" became a hit and Linda a star throughout South Africa. By 1948, the song had sold over 100,000 copies in Africa and among black South African immigrants in Great Britain.
In 1949, Alan Lomax, then working as folk music director for Decca Records, brought Solomon Linda's 78-rpm recording to the attention of his friend Pete Seeger, leader of the folk group The Weavers.
In November 1951, The Weavers recorded an adapted version with brass, string orchestra and chorus and released it as a 78-rpm single titled "Wimoweh", a mishearing of the original song's chorus of "Uyimbube" ("You are a lion" in Zulu). Their version contained the chanting chorus "Wimoweh" and Linda's improvised line.
In 1961, RCA Records hired Weiss to arrange a Doo-wop cover of "Wimoweh", sung by group The Tokens. Weiss wrote the English lines "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight..." and "Hush, my darling, don't fear, my darling...".
“The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was issued by RCA in that year, and it rocketed to number one on The Billboard Hot 100. It earned millions in royalties from cover versions and film licensing.
Here are several version of this song, with its various titles:
Solomon Linda Mbube
The Weavers Wimoweh
The Tokens The Lion Sleeps Tonight
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