Oh What A (South African) Circus

With apologies to Sirs Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice:

 

Oh what a circus, oh what a show
South Africa has gone to town
Over the death of a boxer called Nelson Mandela
We’ve all gone crazy
Mourning all day and mourning all night
Falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right

Oh what an exit, that’s how to go
When they’re ringing your curtain down
Demand to be buried like Nelson Mandela
It’s quite a sunset
And good for the country in a roundabout way
We’ve made the front page of all the world’s papers today

But who is this Saint Madiba?
Why all this howling, hysterical sorrow?
What kind of god has lived among us?
How will we ever get by without him?

He had his moments, he had some style
The best show in town was the crowd
Outside the Union Buildings crying, “Oh, Madiba”
But that’s all gone now
As soon as the smoke from the funeral clears
We’re all gonna see and how, he did nothing for years

Salve regent pater misericordiae
Vita dulcedo et spes nostra
Salve salve regent
Ad te clamamus exules filii Adam
Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes
O clemens o pia

You let down your people Madiba
You were supposed to have been immortal
That’s all they wanted, not much to ask for
But in the end you could not deliver

Sing you fools, but you got it wrong
Enjoy your prayers because you haven’t got long
Your king is dead, your king is through
And he’s not coming back to you

Politics kept us all in the score
Since 27 April 1994
But the star has gone, the glamour’s worn thin
That’s a pretty bad state for a state to be in

 

Instead of government we had a stage
Instead of ideas, a terrorist’s rage
Instead of help we were given a crowd
He did say much and he said it loud

Sing you fools, but you got it wrong
Enjoy your prayers because you haven’t got long
Your king is dead, your king is through
He’s not coming back to you

Salve regent pater misericordiae
Vita dulcedo et spes nostra
Salve salve regent mandela
Ad te clamamus exules filii Adam
Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes
O clemens o pia

Please cry for me South Africa
I am not ordinary, I am important
And I’m deserving of such attention
And yes, we all are, I think we all are
So share my glory, so share my coffin
So share my glory, so share my coffin

It’s our funeral too