Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life Read Online Free PDF

reached the swelling chorus, in which our hero, still awaiting his plane-bound paramour and, at the same time, questing “there” in search of “it,” confesses his devotion to an unknown love object that we can only assume is the female on the plane. This devotion is stronger than a fairly sizable militia. It is a devotion so overwhelming, in fact, that our hero—well, you already guessed this,didn’t you?—
blesses the rains down in Africa
. This tells us two things. First, he is north of Africa. Second, he is in a position to bless rain.
    The sudden introduction of Africa as a thematic element might seem dissonant, but is easily explained by the “Africa” creation story, as related by Toto keyboardist David Paich: “Over many years, I had been taken by the UNICEF ads with the pictures of Africa and the starving children. I had always wanted to do something to connect with that and bring more attention to the continent. I wanted to go there, too, so I sort of invented a song that put me in Africa. I was hearing the melody in my head and I sat down and played the music in about ten minutes. And then the chorus came out. I sang the chorus out as you hear it. It was like God channeling it. I thought, ‘I’m talented, but I’m not that talented. Something just happened here!’” Paich then worked on the lyrics for another six months.
    The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what’s right
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what’s deep inside, frightened of this thing that I’ve
    become
    Our hero is now clearly located in Africa, a place David Paich would very much like to go. We know this because there are wild dogs that cry out at night. It’s unclear why these dogs would seek “solitary company” or what “solitary company” might be, but never mind—Paich only had six months to work on the words. The dogs remind our hero that he is on a quest. In fact, he has a moral obligation whose looming presence he compares to a famous mountain rising like another famous mountain over a famous desert, although, intriguingly, themountain in question does not actually rise above the desert in question because it is several hundred miles away. Regardless, our hero is struck by the realization that he is sick. He’s become a thing of which he is frightened. It remains unclear whether finding “it” “there” will remedy this deep-seated thingdom.
    What is clear at this point in the song is that David Paich recognizes the unique versatility of the word “thing,” which here alludes to a person of indeterminate turpitude while elsewhere serving as a noun simultaneously representing activities and possessions.
    Hurry boy it’s waiting there for you
It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
That’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
    Our hero now reiterates his spiritual bond to Africa.
    Dear Drought-Plagued Continent
, he is saying.
You really remind me of this chick I want to sleep with. Something about you—maybe it’s the wild dogs or the ancient melodies or the starving children I watch on TV-makes me realize I’ve been working too hard. I need to give myself more time to do and consume things with my lady, who I wish would get here already. In return, I bless your rains
.
    There are, of course, many muddled romantic fantasies with artificial backdrops in the pantheon of pop music. The remarkable thing about this one is that it expresses so many quintessentially American attitudes at once:
The consumption of televised suffering grants me moral depth
Benevolence begins and ends in my imagination
Africa sure be exotic
All this consuming and appropriating is tiring—break time!
    Rather than exposing us to