Johnny Clegg & Savuka - Mama Shabalala lyrics

An old lady walking down the dusty farm road

Looking for a simple home

She doesn't want anything extremely smart

And she doesn't need a telephone

She's the child of a refugee running from the Zulu war

Living from hand to mouth, dodging the wrong arm of the law

She's old and she's bent, her eyes can hardly see

And she's going home forever to Weenen County

Chorus

Uhamba njalo wemaShabala

Ukhumbula ku-phi?

Uhamba njalo wemaShabala

Ukhumbula ku-phi wena?

Ukhumbula ku-phi wena?

Uthwala 'nzima wemaShabalala

Iya-phi indlela?

Uthwala 'nzima wemaShabalala

Iya-phi indlela?

Izinto zomhlaba

Izinto zomhlaba

She's built more homes than fingers on her hands

A sharecropper's wife living on County Crown land

And then they wrested the harvest from the land and its lords

And when her man died she could cry no more tears

And she had lost everything that she ever had to lose

So she picks up her walking stick and puts on her car-tyre shoes

And she's walking in a dream listening for that special sound

The echo of the plough whip over Weenen County ground

"Weenen County you took my man" she says

"You took my home, you took my land

You left me all alone - now I'm coming home."

Weenen County in the springtime

Hadeda's on the wing

Blue morning

Blue morning

Repeat chorus and fade out