No Easy Walk To Freedom – Tighthead Fourie & The Loose Forwards/Roger Lucey
No Easy Walk To Freedom – Tighthead Fourie & The Loose Forwards/Roger Lucey
No Easy Walk To Freedom
Roger Lucey must have caused huge consternation at the censor’s offices when he decided to call his band Tighthead Fourie & The Loose Forwards. How could those keepers of our morals possible ban anything rugby related? It must have been with shaky hand and sweaty palm that they (surely) signed off the banning order for this record.
I have not seen confirmation that it was banned, but as it was written in 1986 by Roger Lucey and echoed the words of Nelson Mandela before he was incarcerated and the mere fact that it was Roger Lucey and it refers to Mandela, it must have been banned.
There are two recorded versions of the song that I know of, Tighthead Fourie’s on the Shifty Records compilation ‘Shotdown’ and Roger’s solo version on his ‘21 Years Down The Road’ and both are worth listening to. The former has a country feel to it, both in the dom-dom 1-2 time of the bass as well as in the western twang to the vocals. The latter has a more laid-back acoustic rock sound to it with a Lekgodilo flute giving it a rootsy African flavour.
Despite the anger of the lyics, neither version sounds particularly angry. In fact if you are able to turn off the lyrics in your mind, you might find the songs pleasant listening, but, and this is a big but, if you do manage to ignore the lyrics, you’ve missed the whole point.
Where to find it: Tighthead Fourie version: Shot Down (Resistance Music from Apartheid South Africa) – Various Artists (2006),Shifty Records Roger Lucey Version: 21 Years Down The Road – Roger Lucey (2000), 3rd Ear Music
Video:
1001 South African Songs You Must Hear Before You Go Deaf 
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