When I got in the van, he was already buckled into the front passenger seat. Of the five grandkids going strawberry picking with us that day, he was the oldest at age 14.
Excited about what he held in his hand, a CD soundtrack from the Netflix series Stranger Things, he slid the disc in, and David Paich began to sing “Africa“–the Toto hit from 1982.
We also heard from Devo, Jim Croce, and Cyndi Lauper, among others. But my grandson kept coming back to Toto, back to “Africa”.
We talked about the song–how the songwriter must have been to Africa before he crafted the lyrics because of the line “As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.”
“Africa” was a big hit for Toto–their only Billboard number one. And, as I would learn later, a song that almost didn’t happen. Continue reading “Blessing the African Rains–and a New Generation”