Bright Blue is a sporadic South African band that was prominent on the progressive scene in the final years of apartheid. The band's name "reflected the paradox of being bright in a very blue time" but was also a tribute to Chelsea FC.
They are best known for the protest song "Weeping", written by keyboard-player Dan Heymann, that the band recorded incorporating strands of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" at a time when public performance of the ANC anthem could lead to summary arrest. However, the powers that be seemed to notice neither the reference to a banned tune nor that the song was an allegory about then State President PW Botha and the state of emergency that he had imposed.
In 1999, "Weeping" was voted the "All-time favourite South African song" in a poll by SA Rock Digest/Amuzine. The Radio Rats' 1979 hit, "ZX Dan", was placed second, while "Scatterlings of Africa" (1983) by Johnny Clegg and Juluka was third.
In 2000, "Weeping" was voted the Radio 5 "song of the century".
An early forerunner of the Rainbow Nation, or crossover sound, that blends rock, pop and mbaqanga with occasional lyrics in indigenous languages, Bright Blue were contemporaries of Juluka, éVoid, Mango Groove, Johannes Kerkorrel and Kalahari Surfers.
Famous quotes containing the words bright and/or blue:
“I’m bored to extinction with Harrison.
His limericks and puns are embarrassing.
But I’m fond of the bum,
For, though dull as they come,
He makes me feel bright by comparison.”
—Anonymous.
“That air would disappear from the whole earth in time, perhaps; but long after his day. He did not know just when it had become so necessary to him, but he had come back to die in exile for the sake of it. Something soft and wild and free, something that whispered to the ear on the pillow, lightened the heart, softly, softly picked the lock, slid the bolts, and released the prisoned spirit of man into the wind, into the blue and gold, into the morning, into the morning!”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)