History
Dammers told the Radio Times about the song: "I knew very little about Mandela until I went to an anti-apartheid concert in London in 1983, which gave me the idea for "Nelson Mandela", I never knew how much impact the song would have; it was a hit around the world, and it got back into South Africa and was played at sporting events and ANC rallies-it became an anthem."
Stan Campbell left the band right after the recording of the song and the release of the video for the song, and had to be coerced into rejoining briefly for a live appearance on the BBC TV show Top of the Pops in 1984. Following that one TV appearance, Campbell left for good.
In 1984 the students' union at Wadham College, Oxford passed a motion to end every college "bop" (dance) with the song. The tradition continues despite his release.
A Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute remake released in 1988 featured Elvis Costello, Dave Wakeling, Ranking Roger and Lynval Golding on backing vocals.
At the Nelson Mandela 90th Birthday Tribute in London's Hyde Park in June 2008, the song was performed as the show's finale, with Amy Winehouse on lead vocals. However, careful listening to the soundtrack revealed that, instead of "Free Nelson Mandela", she at times sang "Free Blakey, My Fella" (a reference to her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, a former drug dealer imprisoned for assault). The song was featured on Peter Kay's spoof television programme Britain's Got the Pop Factor. In 2010, the New Statesman listed it as one of the “Top 20 Political Songs”.
Read more about this topic: Free Nelson Mandela
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)