The Brilliance of Peter Gabriel’s “Biko”

I’m quite sure to be wrong about this, but I don’t recall ever hearing the complete song before. Perhaps over the years I heard snippets and just didn’t fully catalog it to memory. Whatever the reason, I find it odd that I don’t recall it because after its release in 1980, the song was a huge hit for Gabriel, with many fans and critics referring to it as his ‘masterpiece’. But back in those days, before I knew much about Gabriel and certainly before the proliferation of digital music, there just weren’t many options available to know whether an artist even existed or not. If their songs weren’t being played on the radio, then the artists were effectively silenced. And since this is the South, after all, with a song calling for racial justice like ‘Biko’, radio stations probably felt that it wasn’t the most palatable choice for Southern ears.  

The song was written as a eulogy of sorts, chronicling the death of Stephen Biko, a native South African whose anti-apartheid activism caught the unavoidable attention of the South African government, who didn’t quite share his calls for racial equality. Biko, and other activists like him, bravely put their freedom, and often their lives, on the line in order to get the world to open their collective eyes and to raise global awareness to the injustice of their plight. Unfortunately, he and countless others died before the world was ready to listen. Eventually, Biko’s ability to rally resistance came to be seen by the government as an intolerable political pathogen that had to be silenced, so orders were given for his arrest on sedition charges, and once in police custody, his interrogation played out to its all too familiar conclusion…. he was beaten to death. And Gabriel gets right to the point in the opening verse by poignantly referring to the ‘security forces’ reputation for brutality as “business as usual.”

September ’77
Port Elizabeth weather fine
It was business as usual
In police room 619

To frame some relevant context around this, South Africa, as we know it today, formed from the leftover political structure of Dutch Imperialism, and although racial separation had begun to gain momentum a few decades earlier, it wasn’t until 1948 that the racial segregation policy of Apartheid became the established policy of the newly elected government. It was at that point that the horror show began in earnest. The majority black population was not allowed to vote, were ordered to live in ghettos, denied effective education, health care, and for all intents and purposes, their human rights. To put this in perspective, roughly 85% of the South African population was ruled and subjugated and ruled by the remaining white population. With that type of power inversion, it takes little effort to understand that fear and violence were the tools of choice for the Apartheid security forces.

Several years ago, I read a book titled, “Long Shadows – Truth, Lies, and History”, by Erna Paris, which was written to explain how history can be distorted, corrupted, or otherwise glossed over by those who have the most to hide. In it I found a shocking chapter on the Apartheid Government which documented precisely what happened under its rule. Much to the credit of Nelson Mandela and his ‘African Congress’, once they assumed control of the government, they initiated the “Truth and Reconciliation Act”, which in effect amounted to an amnesty offer for those security forces and their leaders, who had brutalized, tortured and murdered so many. The price for their amnesty was simply an honest accounting of what they did. Mandela understood that before the country could move forward, the truth had to come out in the open air…… and it was not a pleasant history lesson for me to digest. There were graphic details of political murders, and tortures that occurred all in the service of keeping white rule in place. One of the favorite methods mentioned among the more enthusiastic members of the police force was to drive a suspect out to a particular hill, far away from curious eyes. Once there they would place the man, or woman, inside a stack of tires so that they could not move, then added fuel, struck a match, then stood back and watched with aloof detachment as the flames extinguished a life.

The reason all of this came to mind was that I heard the complete song today for (seemingly) the first time and caught a lyric that stopped everything for me.

“you can blow out a candle, but you can’t blow out a fire”

It’s a line that Thoreau would have been proud to own; you can kill the man, but you can’t kill the movement.

The song, even without considering its stunningly direct lyrics, is a brilliant example of narrative driven production values, with each element crafted to highlight a single, coherent expression. It opens with a local tribe singing an African folk song called “Ngomhla sibuyayo”, which I believe was a significant opening salvo from Gabriel because it was recorded from Biko’s actual funeral, so right from the start a specific reference is made. Then as their voices begin to fade, a solemn tribal drum appears, set to a stark, yet stately beat, like a funeral procession. Then after a few seconds we hear what sounds like a tortured scream crying out in the distance before falling silent. Gabriel then has male singers begin a primal African chant which is in rhythm with the drum beat and from this thoughtfully crafted beginning, the song has its foundation.

The introduction I just described has a visceral effect on the senses and reminds me of a book I read more than twenty years ago, and although I remember nothing else from it, there was a single line that has remained with me ever since; “When the drums sound, the jungle goes silent.”  The meaning of course is that there are some things are simply not processed by the analytical mind, but by the central nervous system and like a lone wolf howling in the distance that breaks the silence of a peaceful night, it simply bypasses analysis altogether and goes straight to our response center, to our vulnerabilities. That tortured scream cutting through the already ominous drumbeat was perfectly crafted to evoke the same unnerving emotion, for once heard, it is impossible to remain unaffected.

Gabriel then introduces bagpipes to the mix, which doesn’t sound like a particularly attractive move at first, but on deeper consideration, I believe it makes for an exceptional counterbalance to the native chants and drumming by adding what is essentially a white man’s instrument and one that has European connotations, thereby suggesting a Colonial component when nestled alongside the primal rhythms. It certainly creates a uniquely evocative soundscape. The bagpipes also help establish an Anthem like feel that beautifully enhances the poignancy of Gabriel’s lyrics. A further ingredient to this musical stew is a single, heavily distorted guitar that weaves through the song that seems to act, at least to my ear, as the fear woven into the fabric of daily life for the South African natives.

Gabriel’s singing is also something truly engaging here, for the vocal treatment itself adds its own narrative texture. Instead of bringing his voice prominently to the forefront as most songs do, Gabriel and crew engineered it to sound as if he’s singing from a distant vantage point. In fact, he doesn’t appear to be singing as much as shouting. His voice is strong, determined and profoundly focused, but there is a slight echo to the sound of it, as if he’s standing at the back of the room, like he’s trying to be heard over a crowd and sings each word with one pointed clarity so as not to waste a single syllable. The effect is phenomenally cogent for Gabriel knew very well that he was aiming this song to be an anthem and had woven all the narrative elements together into a powerfully coherent soundscape, then recorded his vocals to appear as a lone voice, shouting with earnest intensity for justice. I believe Gabriel purposely crafted his vocals this way as an inspiration, as a call to arms by suggesting that each of us must stand in that space, among crowds who are often unconcerned or demurely looking the other way, or even hostile to the message, but to stand firmly on our commitment for justice.

Gabriel may have aimed for an anthem, but I doubt he anticipated the global affect it would have. The song was such a moving, emotional call for justice that many prominent people felt the need to join the fight and accepted his call to intervene. Gabriel himself worked with Amnesty International to spread the word throughout his own tours, while others, such as Sting, U2, Bruce Springsteen and particularly his guitarist, Stevie Van Zandt, who was so moved by it that he formed a supergroup of likeminded musicians called “Artist United Against Apartheid”, who worked to encourage artists and politicians alike to boycott South Africa, which effectively built the international momentum that eventually lead to Apartheid’s dissolvement in 1994, seventeen long years after the murder of Stephen Biko.

Simply put, the song is a masterpiece of form, production, and content, from the opening scream, to the native drumming and chants, to the bagpipes and guitar, on through to the tightly focused lyrics and Gabriel’s vocals. The song stands at the pinnacle of the power that art has to educate and sway public opinion.

Below are the full lyrics, which again are absolutely striking in their tightly focused intensity. There is not a single word wasted. For reference, the lines “Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja”, is sung in Xhosa, the native language of South Africa, and means ‘descend spirit’, as if to remind us that Biko’s example should always be with us.

September ’77
Port Elizabeth weather fine
It was business as usual
In police room 619
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead, the man is dead

When I try to sleep at night
I can only dream in red
The outside world is black and white
With only one color dead
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead, the man is dead

You can blow out a candle
But you can’t blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead, the man is dead

And the eyes of the world are watching now