Homeless

Homeless

Reflections on the song by Joseph Shambalala and Paul Simon, on the death of Shambalala

2/14/2020

This song has a unique popularity among the work of Ladysmith Black Mambaso. Its reception and varied interpretations show some of the ways a fundamental sense of being without a home is part of the human condition. A feeling I think many are experience during this time of a pandemic. I think its worth exploring this universal, but easily missed reality.

Following Shambalala’s death, many tributes and obituaries devoted significant space to remarks on Homeless.  Many,  such as The Guardian stress the context of acapella groups as part of resistance against South African apartheid.  The experience of indifference and arbitrariness of discrimination and repression as being homeless. Without safety, a place to return to, protected and accepted.

More personally, Akhona Ndzuta writes of first hearing the song as a young child. The Zulu lyrics singing of being homeless and sleeping on rough cliffs looking at the moonlight glistening on the lake below. For reasons of employment, he was separated from his mother and felt deeply the sense of being without a home-orphaned, lost. He heard the “strong winds “ as the political forces he and all the powerless were subjected to. Also, lost to those, such as me, the Zulu lyrics end triumphantly.  Claiming victory, meaning over such great hurdles the group faced, their popularity had spread through the world.

To the South African audience, the song then speaks to the experience of apartheid. To an American audience, I think to people of color and other minorities it has a similar meaning. The fact that 60% of Covid 19 cases occur within that community is a strong wind of structural racism and neglect, and many are dead tonight, it could be anyone.

To Shambalala, this very real experience, is a passing one. He converted to Christianity and became a pastor in the Church of God of Prophecy. In the documentary, Out of Africa, members of Ladysmith talk of the difficulty of the first day attempting to collaborate with Simon on this song, with Simon giving them the one word for the English lyrics, “homeless.” The say they spent the night in prayer and the next day the song came easily. From such a viewpoint, the experience of being vulnerable, living in an indifferent world and society will come to an end with resolution and reward.

My reaction when first listening to the Graceland album was very different. Driving east to a beach vacation from my position as a young nondemoninational pastor of a small church, I did not understand the feeling Homeless evoked. Mt belief system at that point in my life was a Kierkegaardian (basically Existentialist) commitment to the promise of risk, of authenticity. Even so, as I preached, comforted, performed ritual and guided, all implied the promise of a home. To a degree, I felt at home on that drive. Yet the first time I heard the song, something transcendent and wordless filled my mind. Even after many repetitions of the track on the way to and from the beach I could not make sense of my reaction.

Only years later, after time spent studying Hinduism and Buddhism with the notions of selflessness, emptiness and impermanence did I identify the feeling I had on that drive as a barely conscious awareness of vulnerability that was not to be feared, but at the heart of life.

Reading how many people heard “homeless” amazes me. Oppressed South Africans, individuals feeling alienated and alone, and a young privileged minister all in their own way feel the truth of being vulnerable in the world. It  is, I think, the essence of our solidarity.

I think of this as a unique solidarity. Being homeless binds us even if we understand it in widely different ways. For many like Shambalala-a temporary condition with a home in the future .  All Monotheisms, Bakthi yoga and Pure Land Buddhism would have similar ways of understanding this experience world. To others this is the human condition without remedy. For some no remedy is needed, and others our condition includes longing for a future that will never be. Regardless of the future, we universally experience this exposure to what seems an indifferent world and often society. Our experience of being homeless varies so greatly from physical homelessness to societal indifference to failed relationships, and to some extent, we all experience in our own way, but we all face an uncertain future. We do, however, face it together and we can do so consciously in our individual lives.

Hear it here