Unrequited Infatuations

by Stevie Van Zandt

  There are references to a biblical state of grace that suggest protection by some unseen force. I’m not religious, but I had that tingly feeling.

  I smiled. I was sure.

  We went in.

  Inside, seven or eight guys were crowded into a single room. All of them were dressed in white. All were carrying machetes.

  They immediately began berating me. What was I doing? I had violated the boycott simply by being there. As they spoke, they glowered and fondled their weapons, occasionally advancing toward me, threatening me, anything to intimidate me.

  I wasn’t having it. I was ready. I knew the only way out of this was to communicate supreme confidence. It was out-tough-guy them or die.

  “Just fucking relax,” I said. I explained that I was there to help, but that I had to see with my own eyes what was happening so I could report back to my people.

  The spokesperson told me that they didn’t need my help.

  “Yes you do,” I said. “Do you seriously think you’re gonna win this war blowing up radio stations, assassinating rats, and necklacing traitors? The government loves it when you pick up a gun or a machete. They know they can win that fight. You want to commit suicide? Go ahead! But don’t pretend you’re some revolutionary heroes doing it!”

  They were not enjoying this conversation.

  “I know how to win this war without spilling a drop of blood,” I said more confidently than I felt.

  That got their attention.

  “OK,” the spokesperson said. “What?”

  “We win this war on TV!”

  They looked around at each other. Who had agreed to meet with this crazy fucker in the first place?

  I made my case. It wasn’t the easiest argument I’ve ever made, considering I was pitching a TV war to revolutionaries living in a black South Africa that had a rare nodding acquaintance with electricity!

  I explained to them how focusing on Sun City would expose the homeland policy and let us use the cultural boycott to jump-start the economic boycott.

  They went to the far side of the room. An intense conversation followed.

  My compadres looked like they were mentally writing their wills.

  My black companion was picking up some words here and there and whispering to me. The general consensus seemed to be they were being too soft on violators of the boycott. Especially white guys.

  I interrupted. “What white guys?” I asked.

  They were taken aback. How had I overheard, let alone understood?

  They shouted at me. “First Paul Simon. Now you!” Paul Simon had been to South Africa just before me, doing research and recording for what would become Graceland. “We should be killing you both!”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” I said. “You can’t kill Paul Simon! He’s too good a songwriter!” I had no idea of the problems Paul would soon cause me, but I’d like to think I still would have tried to talk them out of killing him.

  They didn’t laugh.

  I played my ace.

  “By the way,” I said, “the ANC and the PAC have agreed to support me and endorsed my idea.”

  This sent them back into another intense conversation.

  Bringing up the ANC and the PAC was a calculated risk. All the groups were opposed to one another in some way. There were competitive agendas to spare. But I also knew Mandela had a special place in their hearts. That was true of everyone, except Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, the leader of the Zulu, who wanted to be Mandela. Probably still does if he’s alive. He would be one of the few leaders that would refuse to meet with me.

  “OK,” they finally said. “We have no fucking idea what you’re talking about”—I’m paraphrasing—“but we’ll give you a few months to see what you can do.”

  In other words, they might as well let me go since they’d never heard of me.

  I wasn’t important enough to kill.

  I told them I would do my best. And I added my usual reminder: By the way, if at all convenient, please stop killing people and blowing shit up for a minute. It will help me help you.

  They nodded tentatively.

  It was one of my better acting jobs.

  nineteen

  Revolution

  (1985)

  The faces of the statues are tainted,

  With an unclean righteousness,

  But inside they’re crumbling,

  They know they ain’t got much time left,

  In Pretoria.

  —“PRETORIA,” FREEDOM—NO COMPROMISE

  On the flight home, I began to feel the weight of my own promises.

  Africa was a mess. Fifty countries devastated by colonization, ocean-to-ocean corruption, and endless tribal warfare. But because of the outrageous arrogance of apartheid, South Africa would always be the lightning rod for African injustice. Until that was fixed, the rest of Africa’s problems would never be properly addressed.

  I knew whatever I wrote about Sun City would be too important to just be another song on my next album. It needed more impact.

  I had already decided not to include a song called “Hunger” about the Ethiopian government watching its people starve while they threw a multimillion-dollar anniversary party. Bob Geldof had that subject covered, even though he was selling it as a natural disaster. Which was smart. If you’re looking for money, you score more with less controversy.

  Up to that time, there had been three anti-apartheid anthems: Gil Scott-Heron’s “Johannesburg” in 1975, Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” in 1980, and the Specials’ “Free Nelson Mandela” in 1984.

  I would try and write the fourth.

  The idea of a group song began to germinate, one that was more political than the other group anthems like “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” and “We Are the World.” I would write more straightforwardly about the problem—I didn’t believe in natural disasters—and include one artist from every genre to show unity.

  I got home and started spreading the word. I needed help. Lots of it. I’d opened my mouth and now I had to deliver.

  Somehow, a guy named Danny Schechter found his way into my life. Danny would make all the difference for this project. He was a TV Producer, newsman, and rabble-rouser of the first magnitude, infamous in Boston as “Danny Schechter the News Dissector.” He had been politically active his whole life and involved with the South African issue for decades.

  He would not only be the second Musketeer, the advocate and confidence booster I desperately needed, but the main reason we would reach the political intelligentsia and the world of news journalism. I’ve never been short of ideas, though paying for them can be a challenge. But the all-important marketing is always the most important hurdle, and without a Manager, my work rarely got any.

  Danny and I went to a diner, and I laid out my plan to bring down the South African government. It was the first of a thousand conversations in a thousand diners.

  He knew a woman named Jennifer Davis at the Africa Fund who was one of the leaders of the divestment movement. She was an extraordinarily intelligent and heroic South African woman who had gone into exile. She not only guided us politically but promised to help disburse whatever money we made, if we made any at all.

  From moment one, I had decided to include Rappers in our group of vocalists. Danny enthusiastically agreed. Rappers were not yet in the mainstream—Run-DMC’s “Walk This Way” was a year off—but it was already a rich genre of black artists finally telling it like it was. That wasn’t easy, never had been. Even Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder had to fight for the right to express themselves politically back in the early ’70s, and protorappers like Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets never broke into the mainstream.

  Industry insiders questioned our decision. As with Rock and Roll forty years earlier, they thought this adolescent novelty would disappear as quickly as it had arrived.

  I disagreed. By putting them on this record, we would bestow a credibility on them that we felt they deserved. And to accomplish that, we need
ed…

  Our third Musketeer, Arthur Baker.

  Arthur had produced Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock”; he not only was a visionary combining early street rapping with European Kraftwerk-style Electronica but had also invented a new career creating dance remixes of Pop hits, including songs from Born in the USA. When Danny and I told him what we had in mind, Arthur offered us his studio, his Engineers, his musicians, and, most important, his phone book full of Rappers.

  Wow. How cool was that!

  Now all we needed was… oh yeah, the song!

  I went to the apartment of my assistant Zoë Yanakis, where my little Akai twelve-track was set up and where I would write and record the Lost Boys album and Born Again Savage four years later, and did the demo for “Sun City.”

  Political music has a different purpose than the typical song. It’s a sacrifice of poetry for prose. A sacrifice of Art for information. With a specific protest song like “Sun City,” the challenge would be to explain the situation while still connecting with the listener emotionally.

  Most message records were solemn and earnest. I wanted a different tone, a motivational call to arms. I’d been writing politically for three years by then, so the energy was right at my fingertips.

  I wrote and recorded the demo quickly, in an hour or two. Then I ran down to Arthur’s studio so we could build up the music.

  Danny and Arthur listened. “These are just reference lyrics,” I said.

  “You’re crazy,” they said in unison. “This is the whole story.”

  I protested. I thought I could improve them a bit, but they were adamant—and right, by the way.

  I made one more concession. Danny felt the subject was going to be a hard sell, so we needed controversy to spice things up. He wanted to mention the names of the Artists who had played Sun City as a way of getting attention.

  We went as far as one version of the demo mentioning names before I changed my mind. I decided we needed to take the position that those who had played had been duped, that they had been offered huge money ($100,000 per week) and told they were playing in a separate country. We needed to present a united front. Arguments among musicians would only confuse the public.

  I met with members of Queen and others and explained the situation. The bands wanted to know how to get off the UN boycott list, which was being taken very seriously by the European unions and interfering with tours. “Just tell me right now you won’t go back, and I’ll deal with that,” I said. I got them all off the list including, with some mixed feelings, Paul Simon.

  As we built our wish list of singers for the project, I looked for interesting artists from all genres, Rock and Soul, Punk and Funk, Salsa and Reggae, along with less-than-obvious international artists. Big stars were fine, but they weren’t the priority.

  My top four names were Peter Gabriel (who had alerted me to the issue), Gil Scott-Heron (who had been the first to bring it up in song), Melle Mel (my personal favorite of the Rappers), and Miles Davis (in my mind, I heard his iconic trumpet both at the beginning and in the middle of the song).

  From there, I built out the list: Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne, George Clinton and Darlene Love. I couldn’t leave out David Ruffin, my favorite living singer, and I kept my ear tuned to political engagement, which led me to Rubén Blades (a best-selling Salsa Artist who had started out as a law student) and Peter Garrett (an Australian activist who fronted Midnight Oil). I picked out a line for Bruce and saved it for him.

  Danny and Arthur added names, and we started making calls.

  One of my first was to an Artist I respected a great deal for his enormous talent, his incredible sense of humor, and his political vision. Including him, I thought, would illustrate the difference between our song and more-mainstream projects. As I dialed, I laughed to myself at the thought of him singing along with the chorus of “We Are the World.”

  Frank Zappa answered the phone.

  “Hi,” I said, introducing myself. “We’re making a solidarity statement about what’s going on in South Africa and…”

  That was all I got out.

  “Why would I want to participate in your meaningless bullshit record when all that’s going to happen is that you are going to steal the publishing money?”

  “No, no. It’s…”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Frank, listen…”

  “I’ve heard it all before!”

  His arrogance and obnoxiousness were breathtaking.

  I was tempted to remind him he was mixing me up with someone in show business who had something to lose, instead of a kid from Jersey who would happily beat the shit out of him if he ever dared to speak that way to my face.

  I didn’t even get to mention that I had started a separate publishing company and all royalties would go to the cause.

  “Sorry for wasting your time,” I said, and hung up.

  And I had been such a fan.

  My next two calls were to people from the Hard Rock world I knew fairly well. They both turned me down.

  After that, I delegated the calls to a far more successful schmoozer, Arthur Baker.

  Everybody he called agreed to participate.

  Even so, we weren’t as organized as Band Aid or USA for Africa. We never knew who was coming. Or when. Or what they would do when they got there.

  Danny had had the foresight to bring in our fourth Musketeer, Hart Perry. Hart was tasked with filming the whole process, and he made himself available around the clock. If an artist happened to show up at two in the morning, we’d call Hart and he’d be there in ten minutes.

  I look back in wonderment that we pulled it off at all. We didn’t have the brains to reach out through publicists or Managers, who probably would have declined anyway. This was not a good career move for an artist.

  We recorded a log drum as the click track, the basic rhythm, I threw on a quick rhythm guitar, added two keyboard horn riffs on a synthesizer, and we were ready for vocals.

  We started with the Rappers.

  Run-DMC came in, looking and sounding just like I hoped they would. When they did the opening line, “We’re rockers and rappers united and strong…,” their Manager Russell Simmons leaned over to me. “You know, we’re thinking about changing it.”

  “Changing what?”

  “The term for what we do,” he said. “Rapping.”

  “What?” I said. “Why? It’s been an underground cult, but we’re about to introduce it to the world!”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s cool. But we feel like it’s too limiting.”

  “What are you gonna change it to?”

  “Hip-Hop,” he said.

  “Get the fuck outta here!” I said. “That is the stupidest fucking name I’ve ever heard! It’ll never catch on!”

  As the Rappers did their thing—Kurtis Blow, the Fat Boys, Duke Bootee, and Afrika Bambaataa—we realized we had all these great artists there just to say a few lines. It seemed like a waste. After we got what we needed, we told them to feel free to express their feelings about the subject any way they wanted.

  Melle Mel went into the next room for fifteen minutes and came back with an incredible rap. We added news footage, Mandela’s speeches, and sound effects, and Arthur turned it into a separate anti-apartheid montage. That was the beginning of the “Sun City” single growing into an album.

  The whole thing was wild and spontaneous. The first twenty or thirty artists that came in sang the whole song, not just their line. We sorted it out later.

  Peter Gabriel did a chant and layered it and layered it until it was a cool abstract expressionist piece. When we came back the next day, one of our Engineers, Tom Lord-Alge, and Arthur’s drummer Keith LeBlanc had added drums to Peter’s chant. I put on guitar and synth and Peter’s electric violinist Shankar played on the track. Boom! Another song.

  Gil Scott-Heron was on the lam at the time. I had to call a phone booth in Washington, DC, at 10 p.m. on Thursdays to talk to him. But whe
n the time came, he showed up and did a great job.

  I flew to London to record Ringo Starr and his son Zak, and got a guitar part from Pete Townshend.

  And then he walked in.

  By some miraculous stroke of luck, Miles Davis was using my old sound man, who was brave enough to bring up our project to him. He didn’t do these types of things ever, but this was an important issue to him.

  It was one of the thrills of my life when he walked in. Nobody intimidates me, but he came close. He sat next to me as I played him the song. About halfway through, he leaned over. “Hey,” he said in that classic rasp, “you want me to play or what?”

  I laughed. “Not really,” I said. “I was hoping you’d take over as Producer so I can get some fucking sleep!”

  That got a rare smile and loosened him up.

  He played for maybe five minutes with the mute, which I asked for, and another few minutes without it.

  I looked at Arthur, who looked at Danny, who looked at Hart, who looked back at me. This shit just got real. I had planned to use Miles for twenty seconds in the intro and fifteen seconds in the middle, but there was no way we were leaving five minutes of Miles Fucking Davis on the cutting room floor.

  I called the Jazz Producer Michael Cuscuna and asked if he could get to the guys from Miles’s Second Great Quintet—Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. They all responded. Michael had found Stanley Jordan playing guitar in the subway and brought him in too. They improvised to what Miles had played, and it became a modal monochromatic impressionist masterpiece.

  Bono was so inspired by the project that he wrote a new song, “Silver and Gold,” which we recorded with Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and Stevie Jordan.

  A few days afterward Bruce came in to do his line, then we went across the river and filmed the video for “Glory Days” at Maxwell’s in Hoboken. Man, was he in a bad mood that day. I had to mug as exaggerated as I could just to make him laugh and loosen him up.