The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite

The song "Wimoweh" began its life in 1939 as a composition by Solomon Linda, a songwriter for the Evening Birds, a dandified acapella group in South Africa. The record -- then titled "Mbube" -- sold well in Johannesburg, which led Alan Lomax, then a song collector working for the Library of Congress, to lend a copy to Pete Seeger. Seeger developed the song for his 1950's group, the Weavers, and ultimately recorded the song with it's new title, "Wimoweh," which likely came from a mis-hearing of a word repeated in "Mbume"'s chorus: "uyiMbube" (translated: "You are a lion.")

The Weavers recorded the song for the Folkways record company, and as of its first pressing the song was credited to "Paul Campbell," a pseudonym of Folkway's parent compony owner Harry Richmond to copyright the public-domain folk songs which The Richmond Organization published. (This is one of the more nefarious tactics employed by certain folksong collectors, recorders, and artists -- copyrighting material that rightly belonged in the public domain or -- as in this case -- a living author. ) Seeger received an arranger's fee, a standard way to credit artists with an impact upon an existing or public domain work.

Pete Seeger has said that the song refers to Shaka the Lion, the last king of the Zulus, who would return from death (or a long sleep) to once again rule his people, similar to Western legends concerning King Arthur or Richard Milhouse Nixon. "Wimoweh" was a hit for the Weavers, and several other folk groups performed the song. Seeger, who claimed that he had little understanding of how record royalties worked, sent his arranger's fee of $1,000 to Solomon Linda and asked the record company to forward royalties as well. It's a bit unclear whether this happened.

In the early sixties, the song was reworked again by songwriters George David Weiss, Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore on behalf of RCA recording artists The Tokens. This song, now called "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," retained much of the "Mbube"/"Wimoweh" melody but added in some trite English lyrics that only half-heartedly refer to the Shaka legend: "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight..." Claiming sole writing credit for the song, this arrangement cut Solomon Linda out of the proceeds altogether. The song's appearance in Disney's The Lion King alone earned the song an estimated $15M. A Rolling Stone expose in 200 has ultimately led to some compensation agreements with the family of the now-deceased Solomon Linda (who died near penniless in the early '60s), and has also led to the South African documentary "A Lion's Trail," which appeared on PBS a couple of years ago. (A 2004 suit claimed that Disney owed the family $1.6M in royalties, and TRO/Folkways now delivers an estimated $3,000 per year for the Weaver's version.)

Regarding the catchy "Lion Sleeps Tonight," please consider that: a) Lions live in the savanna, not in the jungle, and b) there are no jungles in Johannesburg. The Seeger/Weaver's version of the song -- and the Evening Birds version -- do not contain such inanities.