Bushbabies and Bananas

Lyrics © 2016 Lyrics written in 2016, set to music in 2026. When the forest falls silent of chattering birds and the Moon shines down on empty glades, when the Earth no longer shakes under the migrating herds and the trees are felled where the cheeky apes played          Will you cry for Me then? Maputo Special Reserve When the ice melts and grasslands turn to sand and the gentle humble giants no longer roam the barren lands, when the setting Sun is pining for the lion’s mighty roar and the sweet sad sound of the night jar’s call     Will you cry for Me then? When flamingoes no longer grace the mirror-like pans and no coucals joyfully herald approaching soft rains, when no Mahogany tree lends his shade from the burning Sun nor their pods crunch underfoot in late summertime     Will you cry for Me then? When the lonely wind carries just a memory of a mighty eagle soaring, and an echo of a dreamtime with soft water fal...

Image Credit:  Kriss Kringle He was a dream of Africa       Pure essence of the Sun God           Raw power blazing down on the Savannah               A mighty roar of the wind But He was born into bondage Image Credit:  CACH       Into a world where His magnificent Spirit is of no value         His only worth is the price on His head for His slaughter              and His bones for "medicine" In commercial lion breeding enterprises     the lionesses are kept breeding their cubs torn from them at only a few days old     and unsuspecting, well-meaning volunteers are duped into paying large sums of money to help rear the “orphan” cubs… who are also rented out as "props" for events - placed into unnatural, stressful situations - to earn their "owners" money They then progress t...

Pic:  Tsavo Trust © 2014 A hush has descended over the savannah     Satao has fallen,         He is no more, and the wild birds’ song      as they flip flap along,           mourning Him, but He can’t hear their call He died by a poisoned arrow     hissing through the crisp winter air and He crashed to his knees,     amidst the sorrowful trees         wintering, leafless and bare A shadow dimmed the skies      as the light left his gentle eyes whilst his killers circled round        knives in hand, and there’s a stain on our soul      from the blood-soaked ground where His dear face was butchered,          and a curse on the land Pic:  Tsavo Trust Satao, it’s dusk,    the moon i...

When the rising moon calls to his soul       he cannot answer, he cannot follow Her shadow’s path weaving through the magic of twilit trees    as She glides so lightly through the sky, perhaps he catches a glimpse of Her against the smog and city pollution      through a dirty window as Night slowly creeps by He is trapped in this cage until his keeper comes tomorrow, when he is wheeled out for his part in the show,       degraded to being dressed as a human and playing drums, and the idiot crowd laughs and thinks this is good,     and that this is fun He cannot express his urge to swing or call, and instead of tree bark he has cold steel,     he cannot feel the gentle breeze rocking him to sleep in a branch, just the city’s noisy stories makes up the sadness of his real    His very nature eats away at him,     because you cannot trap the wind as it dances thro...

Copyright statement:   © Christine Jordaan. © Lyrics 2014.  Song © 2026. All lyrics are original works authored by me. The music and vocal performances were created using AI tools under commercial licenses that grant me ownership and perpetual commercial usage rights in the resulting outputs. All rights reserved. Note:   Visual content across this site may include elements created or enhanced using AI-generated imagery as part of the overall creative process. Words below blogged in 2014, adapted slightly for above song in 2026. He is a wild spirit       trapped in someone else’s idea for his life Imagine his despair of life in a cage, the pure frustration of wanting to swing free in trees and interact with his own kind, feel another furry body,       touch another wild mind      Feel his fear of the beatings when he hasn’t learnt to play his role correctly,           as ...

Photo credit:  Karl Ammann Beautiful people…. I was honoured recently to be contacted by Karl Ammann ( www.karlammann.com ), a wildlife warrior of note (named Hero of the Environment, and SAB Environmental Journalist of the Year).  He asked me to help raise awareness of the plight of the #slaveapes  as he had seen the world roaring out for our beloved lions.   Together with Dr Dan Stiles (danstiles.org), Nick Cockayne ( http://www.apeactionafrica.org/index ) and a specialised team they have created PEGAS. And so world - I am afraid I need some more tears from you, I’m so sorry.    After the lion march, I seriously wondered if I had any more tears left in my heart or had I cried them all out…  I worried that I had become one of those hard people you see that just don’t cry anymore…  but I’m afraid my heart has been broken again…  actually as I sit here now I wonder at what point one’s heart says “eno...

Addressing the EXCO of the Amakhosi, February, 2014 Global March for Lions  Today, somewhere another roar has been silenced by bullet or deadly bow and a betrayed spirit departed to wherever the Wild Ones go Today, somewhere an executioner has hung up his weapon of death boasted his tale of a bloody kill and his victim’s last agonising breath Today, somewhere another heart has broken and bitter, despairing tears wept and a plea to the Sacred poured out to the night drifting up to the angels where wishes are kept In springtime last year I had a vision that the King Stag was standing on a lonely high peak so faithfully in the mist of the magic so patiently  hurting, with the tragic waiting for us to grow into our Heroes and in our thousands we gathered before Him and knelt in a fervent prayer that the Light would descend down to Earth and live in every mind here With a thousand sighs of the wind and in a beat of the Earth’s wise heart the tears...