CASA - The Contemporary A Capella Society

When Pete Seeger heard it and recorded it, he changed the chant of “Mbube” (which means “Lion”) to “Wimoweh.”

Sound familiar?

Then the Kingston Trio, and then the Tokens recorded a doo-wop version with some additional lyrics built over an improvised line at the end of the original recording, and we have one of a cappella’s best known and most frequently performed songs.

If you haven’t read it yet, or don’t know the history of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” I recommend you read the recent article in the New York Times, “In The Jungle, The Unjust Jungle, A Small Victory.” In addition, there was a great story in Rolling Stone a couple years ago. In short, Solomon Linda lived and died a pauper. This isn’t Mozart level of poverty; no Viennese court invitations for him. He slept on a dirt floor and ate gruel every day. An incredibly sad tale of exploitation and injustice.

But that’s not my point. My point is that this one song lives on. One simple, semi-improvised a cappella song changed the course of African culture and the world’s popular musical history.

One silly, repetitive song written while herding cattle. A little tune that came into his head.

Now, I don’t expect every song that’s written to be world changing, nor do I think that every little tune that pops in one’s head to be worth recording. However, there is most likely a lot of great potential a cappella music that isn’t getting recorded because people think it’s too trite, or they’re not professional songwriters, or they’re trying too hard to create something that will top the pop charts rather than the music that occurs naturally to them.

It’s no secret that since I formed CASA I’ve been pushing people to create more original a cappella music. The arrangement library and CASA songbooks were created to get people to stop spending all their energy reinventing the wheel, slaving over the same core tunes, and instead move past that stage in their group’s development into creating their own original arrangements, their own sound, and eventually their own music.

You may never make any real money from it; Solomon Linda certainly didn’t, but that’s not why you sing a cappella in the first place. It’s rewarding in many other ways. What you will do is bring something new into this world. Something fresh, something honest, something that expresses who you are and the unique gumbo resulting from the songs you’ve listened to since childhood, and the experiences you’ve had.

So what’s my point? Everyone can write a song. Especially people who are making music on a regular basis.

Yes, I’m asking you to write a song. Just one song.

Maybe it’ll be weird, maybe it’ll be funny. Maybe it’ll be twelve seconds long. Maybe it’ll be a lullaby, or a song about waiting for your tea to fully steep. It’s not going to cost you anything, and it’s not gonna take very long.

Let it grow naturally out of something you’re doing. Let the words in your head and the natural flow of your thoughts and the rhythm inherent in your actions and the sounds around all meld. Perhaps you’ll find yourself humming a little phrase, or tapping out a rhythm with your feet. Go with it. And see where it takes you.

And who knows? You may end up penning the world’s next great a cappella song, spurring a new style of music, carving your name deeply into the annals of modern culture. Or maybe it’ll just be a tune you sing to yourself on the subway. Either way, the world will be a better, richer, place for it.