Fred de Vries is a Dutch author and journalist who moved to South Africa in 2003. He used to play in a punk band and has written nine non-fiction books, among them Club Risiko, a look at 80s underground music in six cities, including London, Berlin, New York and Johannesburg.
LOAD-SHEDDING PLAYLIST
Songs of the dark, for the dark
I remember those early days of load shedding, when it was all still a novelty, and we thought the blackout was just a sick joke. It has become something entirely different as the country faces outages on a daily basis. FRED DE VRIES has some suggestions for songs that might keep you from going insane in the dark.
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COME with me, dance my dear, even if it’s the dance of desperation. These are dark times, so let’s play a little game. Nothing too hard, nothing too strenuous, just a topical game to raise the spirits and get those feet moving, those hips shaking.
Here’s my question: what is your favourite load-shedding song? What have you been playing, singing, or humming as the lights went out for the umpteenth time? Or, looking at it from a slightly different angle: what is the song that kept you going, stopped you from going insane? And... can you dance to it?
So, here’s my take. When load shedding began in 2007, and we all thought it would be a temporary thing, I used to annoy my partner by loudly singing the chorus of a tune by British punks The Damned. “Let’s wait for the blackout / The light is too bright.” She didn’t find it funny. But I thought it a great song, with particularly apt lines such as “There is no vision here / At first you may find it strange / But do not go away / The darkness holds a power / That you won’t find in the day.”..
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Volgende artikelFred de Vries
JournalistFred de Vries is a Dutch author and journalist who moved to South Africa in 2003. He used to play in a punk band and has written nine non-fiction books, among them Club Risiko, a look at 80s underground music in six cities, including London, Berlin, New York and Johannesburg.