Is desert ‘sound installation’ a step Toto far?

Sorry, just checking... where are we meant to be blessing the rain again..?

What was the most streamed song in 2017? Something by Ed Sheeran, maybe? Or Adele?

Nope. It wasn’t even a song from that year. It was quadruple platinum, soft-rock, 1982 epic “Africa” by Toto. Yes, the vintage track saw off all the newcomers a couple of years ago, continuing it’s relentless march through a rhyming desert landscape of baffling lyrics and impassioned vocal pleas. And repeated blessings of the rain.

Definitely in the ‘Marmite’ category (you either love it or hate it), the classic continues to make the headlines, and there’s nothing a hundred men or more could ever do to stop it.

Just two months ago, a DJ in Bristol went for the “ultimate guilty pleasure” track as his choice for a same-record-all-night charity gig. After five hours on loop, I bet the drums really were echoing that night.

Even the band’s Steve Lukather suggested in a Tweet that the Africa marathon “could be worse than waterboarding”, before pointing out to anyone who thinks they’ve heard the tune too many times, “You think YOU are sick of it?”

But that’s nothing compared to the song’s latest adventure – it’s going to be playing for the rest of eternity in a desert in (you’ve guessed it) Africa. The song with the catchy line “as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti” will be on loop in a sound installation, somewhere in the Namib desert.

Fancy popping by for a listen when you’re passing? Good luck with that – the Namibian artist who has created the aural installation isn’t letting on where it is, and the Namib is 81,000 sq km of the sandy stuff, so don’t expect to stumble across it whilst out for a stroll.

With an MP3 player on loop built in, and powered by solar panels and rechargeable batteries, the timeless track is set to become just that... presuming it doesn’t get buried by wandering dunes. Should it manage to play for as long as the desert has existed, then you’ve got just 55 million years to track it down. Long forgotten words and ancient melodies, indeed.

So if you’re seeking to cure what’s deep inside and fancy trying to find the art installation and it’s eternal tune, catch the 12.30 flight, stop an old man along the way but hurry boy – it’s waiting there for you.

This post first appeared as my 'A wry look at the week' column, in The Mail, on Friday the 18th of January 2019. The version used on their website (yes, it reappeared online this week!) used the same title, and contained a fetching picture of the band.

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