Songoftheday 8/4/14 - Relocation to phony homelands separation of families I can't understand...

Artists United Against Apartheid - "Sun City"
from the album Sun City (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #38 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 3

Today's Song of the Day is a benefit record quite different from the easy-listening begs of "We Are The World" or "That's What Friends Are For", but rather helped change opinion over a human rights cause that changed the face of Africa in the 80's.

"Little" Steven Van Zandt had just left the regular touring lineup of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, and he was originally recording a track to compare the plights of black South Africans to Native Americans. But after partnering with remixer/producer Arthur Baker and newsman Danny Schecter, he converted the song into a defiant statement against the South African government, the placid encouragement of its Caucasian people, and the United States' lack of interest in engaging the situations. Enlisting artists from rock, soul, and hip-hop, the collective that recorded "Sun City" was by far the most diverse and musically relevant lineup on a "charity"-style record, with A-listers Springsteen, Bono, and Hall & Oates joining veterans like Lou Reed, Miles Davis, and Nona Hendryx and newbies Run DMC and Grandmaster Melle Mel. Most of them got together in New York (with some cut-ins of studio clips) to shoot the video for the song that felt like a party that the whites-only resort wasn't invited to...

"Sun City" popped in to the American Top-40 in December of 1985, mostly due to sales of the record, since a big chunk of radio refused to play the single due to any criticism of "saint" Ronald Reagan. Internationally, the record did better, reaching the top-10 in Australia and Canada as well as #21 in Britain.

A million dollars was raised from the project, which went to anti-apartheid organizations and education charities. But most importantly, it was a cannonball across the bow that South Africa will be cut off at least culturally until awareness caused changes to come incrementally during the final years of the decade, with the nineties seeing the horrid institution get dismantled altogether. And other artists not on the record were shamed to have been caught performing there.

These days Sun City itself is back to being an A-list resort, even providing the backdrop for the craptacular Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore movie Blended. Furthermore, the man behind the hotel, Sol Kerzner, has gone on to co-opt another indigenous people, Native Americans, to make money for himself with the chain of Mohegan Sun casinos. So think about that next time you find yourself there.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


and here's Steven with Simple Mind performing "Sun City" at a concert to celebrate Nelson Mandela's birthday in 1988..

Up tomorrow: an evening patrolman bids adieu.