The Road From Crisis to Catharsis in the Songs of Roger Lucey

Author(s): Michael Drewett

Source: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 42, No. 2
(DECEMBER 2011), pp. 379-396
Published by: Croatian Musicological Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41337866
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 M. Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsis
IRASM 42 (2011) 2: 379-396
in the Songs of Roger Lucey

Michael Drewett
Rhodes University,
GRAHAMSTOWN,
South Africa
E-mail: M.Drewett@ru.ac.za
The Road From Crisis to
Catharsis in the Songs of
UDC: 784.66
Received: July 30, 2010
Roger Lucey Primljeno: 30. srpnja 2010.
Accepted: June 2, 2011
Prihvačeno: 2. lipnja 2011.

Abstract - Résumé
In the late 1970s white folk-rock singer-song-
In the late 1970s and early
1980s South African protest
writer Roger Lucey embarked on a music career,
singer Roger Lucey com-
singing mostly protest-themed songs against
posedthe
and performed songs
which were critical of the
apartheid government in South Africa. In response
apartheid government. By
the apartheid police force assigned security using
branchlegislation and state
policeman Paul Erasmus to put an end to Lucey's
security to impose threats,
the apartheid state was
career. As Erasmus' clandestine campaignable
took
to apply pressure to all
effect, Lucey found it impossible to make a areas
living
of production, promo-
from music and was forced to find alternative means tion and distribution of
Lucey's message and
of income. With the end of apartheid in 1994, thereby effectively silence
Erasmus confessed to his actions against Lucey, him. With the end of apart-
heid and the admission of
allowing Lucey the opportunity to make sense of histhe police that they had
unsuccessful career, a process which ultimately led silenced Lucey's career,
. Lucey once again began to
to his attempt to turn to music once again. compose and perform
In this paper I explore Roger Lucey's lyrical music. This paper consid-
journey through these difficulties by means of the ers Lucey's lyrical journey
through these difficulties by
metaphor of the 'road' to which Lucey frequently means of the metaphor of
turned in his songs. Throughout Lucey's career the the 'road' to which he
turned in his songwriting
metaphor of the road has been central to his under- throughout his career.
standing of South Africa's journey to democracy and Keywords: Songwriting
• protest • the road
of his own part in that journey. The paper explores metaphor • therapeutic
the powerful role of music (and the image of therole of music

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■в лем üo /оп4 4' о. что oöfi I M- Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsis
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road within Lucey's songs) in expressing the yearning of

ing gross social and political inequalities and of that
attempts to come to terms with his and his country's pas
of a new democratic context. As Lucey declares, the role o
deal with his traumatic past has been cathartic. It has a
terms not only with his own past, but also with the ve
career. Lucey's music brought him face to face with Eras
ential in the subsequent reconciliation of these two forme
that music's ability to articulate the singer-songwriter'
allow for a context of confrontation and healing for sin
ence alike, depending on the positioning of the individua
Požgain and Filakovic 2005). However, this paper does not
music on audiences or in bringing about political chang
metaphor of the 'road' in Roger Lucey's music, it conside
to express the sentiments of the singer-songwriter, an
facilitate a process of dealing with personal-political iss
her. Music most certainly has the potential to play a br
those considerations are not of concern in this paper.
Lucey had grown up with first-hand experience of the
because of a close friendship with a black friend, Jabul
together in the streets of Durban and the township wher
This experience would later inform Lucey's song writing

We were told in school, we were told out of school, we wer

were told in essays and magazines, everywhere you turned
was this onslaught. The communists via South Africans bl
over your country, they were going to rape your sisters, they
live in your house and use the floorboards for firewood, just
lution ... that we needed to be alert and we needed to be rea
scourge. But of course you know, anybody that had been int
absolutely aware that this was absolute rubbish . . . Being ab
like with Jabula. To go and out there and talk and see peop
you could see that this thing was a fiction.1

Towards the end of his school days Lucey had written

age of eighteen he felt the need to express his ideas mu
musical aspirations within the context of a strong 1970
explained:

When I started hearing South Africans writing songs I had this idea that I could write
songs but take it even further. A lot of those people were writing these songs and they

1 Roger LUCEY, Author's interview, Cape Town, 31.03.2002.

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 M. Drewett. The Road From Orisis to Catharsis I (2011) 2" 379~39G
in the Songs of Roger Lucey |

were South African songs but they weren't really about South Africa. And I thought
that what we should be doing is writing South African songs but about South Africa,
about who we were, where we are. In Durban there was a like a folk music association
that put on festivals and had weekly meetings where you could go and perform. There
was a lot going on, so I just started getting more and more into it ... it was the beginning
of a whole series of musical collaborations and of a very creative period, and me
discovering myself and what this whole thing was about, writing songs.2

Lucey began imitating the folk styles of the established folk singers of the
time. While Bob Dylan had been an obvious overseas influence, he was also influ-
enced by the top South African folk singers of that time, including John Oakley-
Smith, Colin Shamley, Paul Clingman and Mike Dickman. Another strong
influence was the guitarist of top South African rock band The Flames, Steve
Fataar, with whom Lucey shared a digs and jammed during his early days as a
musician. Perhaps because of Fataar 's influence in particular, Lucey developed
more of a rock edge to his music, especially once he put together a backing band.
His most established backing band, the Zub Zub Marauders, were essentially a
rock band. By 1979 when Lucey released his first album The Road is Much Longer ,
it was not uncommon for reviewers to compare him to the likes of Bruce Spring-
steen and Bob Seger (see for example Thorpe 1979, Lee 1980, Marais 1980). However,
most probably because of his folk roots and political convictions, Lucey always
placed emphasis on his lyrical delivery so that the words were clearly audible,
allowing the listener easy access to the messages he was conveying.
While most South African musicians at the time avoided political songs or
wrote songs which symbolically opposed apartheid, Lucey wrote confrontational
songs about the atrocities of apartheid. These included politically overt songs like
»Lungile Tabalaza« 1979) about a young black man killed by the apartheid police,
»Crossroads« (1979) about the forced removal of black South Africans, »You Only
need Say Nothing« (1979) about political apathy and »Thabane« (1979) about
apartheid atrocities more generally. As he explained:

people would say to me 'jeez, you're so overt, you're so in-your-face' and I would say
'well, that's what it is, I mean, that's what it gotta be. There's no point in sort of disgu-
ising it.' And that's where I disagreed with the folkies who would. I would say 'where's
the point of having an anti-fascist message and sort of like - I'll take the high road and
you take the low road and we'll go and smell the daisies - type of song'. This is
bullshit, you know, it meant nothing. So no I didn't. I didn't believe in that approach.
I believed in in-your-face, you know, tell it like it is, the cops are out there, they're
fucking throwing people out of the window, and that is what it's all about, and that's
what the song says. Simple.3

2 Ibid.

3 Roger LUCEY, Author's interview, Cape Town, 16.07.1998.

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■в лом 42 ап тв'лл ' 2: п 379-396 о-»л оос I м. Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsi
■в IRASM лом 42 ап тв'лл (2011) ' 2: п 379-396 о-»л оос

Lucey thus wrote songs which captured both events happening around him
and his perception of those events. In describing this aspect of the songwriting
process, Ingrid Byerly (2008: 255) introduces the notion of 'musical markers' as
experiences of music which »punctuate people's lives, whether consciously or
not. These markers entertain, inform, influence, and instil personal memories that
serve as symbols of meaningful demarcations in any life history.« Certainly, the
personal and political conviction of Lucey's lyrics meant that his songs acted as
musical markers for important events in his own personal and political life. As
such music can, in John Blacking's (1995:150) words, »explore the structures of
emotion and express values that transcend and inform the passing scene of social
events«. The role of music as a marker in this process is important. For Dunja
Degmečič, Ivan Požgain and Pavo Filakovič (2005:288), music »contains untold
stories, quiet whispers and shouts about mental pictures, memories, meanings
and things that are linked to the psychic processes during the creative process of
composing . . . The subject who is creating, performing or receiving music can thus
use meaningful musical structures to build his or her own world into meaningful
and harmonious entirety«. The intertwining of metaphorical lyrics with music
heightens the ability of songs to capture and represent mental pictures, memories
and meanings. These representations are able to act as a form of therapy for the
singer-songwriter as s/he attempts to capture and assimilate what s/he is feeling
through the process of composing songs. In the process of composition, »the
highly subjective and intimate world of sounds« combines with the 'forms of
experience' of the songwriter (Degmečič, Požgain and Filakovič 2005:288). It is in
this context of musical and lyrical integration that this paper explores Roger Lucey's
use of the 'road' metaphor in his songs over the course of his music career.
From the very beginning the 'road' was a powerful metaphor in Roger Lucey's
songwriting. The 'road' has long been a powerful metaphor for openness, as in
'the open road' where it captures the open-endedness of travel, exploration and
wandering, but it can also allude to trials and tribulations along a predetermined
path such as the yellow brick road in The Wonderful Wizard ofOz (Baum 1900) and
the road to salvation in John Bunyan's (1937) Pilgrim's Progress. Patrick Webster
(2004: 2) notes that the 'road' is a common theme in Bob Dylan's songs, often rep-
resenting »a place with a romantic, visionary and mythological ambition«. For
Webster, Dylan often evokes the metaphor of the 'road' as a means for men to
escape women in their quest for a stronger masculine identity. A similar example
of the road in popular music is Bruce Springsteen's »Thunder Road« (1975) in
which, according to Colleen Sheehy (2004: 352) »the highway is a path to libera-
tion« where the open road offers »movement, freedom, and new possibilities«. In
other words, as Bengt O. Tedeborg (2005: 2) suggests, Springsteen's 'road' repre-
sents individual emancipation: »There is a wide open road up ahead and every
dream ever dreamt can be fulfilled«. Certainly, Brent Bellamy (2009: 2) has noted
that in many works (both in literature and music) in the United States, the road

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 M. DrewGtt. The Road From Orisis to Catharsis I ц^д§|у| 42 (2011) 2" 379-396
in the Songs of Roger Lucey |

»serves as a guide, or as a representative of the power of choice and freewill.

Simultaneously, it serves as a symbol of determinism. The road7 is a structure that
only leads in certain directions. Even though, it will inevitably lead to the sea, for
example, or to some destiny, that destiny lies at a fixed point on 'the road'. In
effect 'the road' is a structure that is designed to be followed.«
In the South African political context the road has certainly stood for a struc-
tured path to be followed by political movements fighting for political emancipa-
tion. In turn, the open road has certainly represented freedom, and as a political
symbol the road has stood for the journey to political freedom, as in Nelson Man-
dela's biography Long Walk To Freedom in which the anti-apartheid struggle is
viewed as a journey along the road to democracy. While the 'road' offers hope it
is also regarded as tiring, if the time spent there is too long. At such times is rep-
resents both a promise to a destination and a frustration - as it throws up obstacles
and delays one from reaching the destination, as in Bread's »Been Too Long on the
Road« (1970) and the Beatles' »The Long and Winding Road« (1970). As Peter
Guralnick (1989: 2-3) has noted, for many musicians »the road has become jour-
ney, arrival, process, definition, virtually replacing in almost every instance the
very impetus that set them out on the road in the first place ...For some the road
has become a metaphor for all the psychic dislocations that a career in show busi-
ness necessarily entails.« Certainly, for Roger Lucey the 'road' intricately linked
South Africa's struggle for democracy with his own trials and tribulations, both
politically and personally. As Lucey explains, »In all my songs I have always tried
to reflect either where I stand in society or where I stand in my personal life.«4
Roger Lucey's first reference to the road adheres to this limiting sense of the
road as a structure, a delay between departure and arrival. The title track to his
first album The Road Is Much Longer is a song about hitchhiking based on
Lucey's experience repeatedly traversing the 550 km journey between Durban -
his family base where he grew up - and Johannesburg - where his music career
was based. David Williams (1979: 28) described it as: »The definitive South Afri-
can road song. A medium paced rolling feel with plaintive fiddle and a jangling
Henson guitar solo, while Assie Williams' creamy double-tracked backup vocals
contrast nicely with Roger's growl«. In the song there is a suggestion that he is
hitching back to see a loved one:

And now the night's fallen and I'm nearer to home

And I hear you calling are you feeling alone.

However, the song also symbolically alludes to South Africa's political road
and Lucey's acknowledgement that, in the face of increased political repression
after the Soweto uprising of June 16 1976 ('the scars on his knuckles'), democracy
seems even further away:

4 Roger LUCEY, Author's interview, Cape Town, 31.03.2002.

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id Асы ло ton 4i' o. 17Û юс I M- Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsis
id IKAbM Асы 4Z ло (ZÜ1 ton 4i' 1 ) o. à J79- 17Û J3b юс s f R

And я řruc/c driver stops for a rap for a ride

So you get in and you talk about work ' til the miles . . .
But the scars on his knuckles they show you where he's been.

Ultimately, for Lucey time spent on the road is a frustration. Whether it's the
road travelled by the hitchhiker on the way to a geographical destination or the
revolutionary on the path to democracy. While the journey is necessary because it
leads to a desired goal, the time it takes is a constraint. As he exclaims:

I want you to know

That the highway is just like a prison
And from where I'm standing there's no space that's near
And the one thing only that's certain
Is that the road is much longer than ever before.
[The Road Is Much Longer, 1979]

With seemingly little else to do but wait and persevere, impatience grows,
frustration mounts and the distance between here and there seems to grow. It is as
though the singer wrote the song on the road, yet it is not the frustration which
moves the song forward, but rather a wistful longing for the end of the journey. A
different image of the road is conjured in Lucey's more overtly political songs. In
the song »Lungile Tabalaza« (1979) a fast-paced rock song about a young man
who was killed by the apartheid police who threw him out of the window of a
police office block during interrogation, Lucey warns that the road - township
streets - patrolled by the apartheid police are not safe:

There are cops on every corner

And they know what they don't like
And if you're it then you know
That the street's no place for you at night.

While in »'The Other Side Of Town« (1980) the road is representative of the
journey one would take in a racially segregated society, where racial classification
would determine your life's chances from birth:

In the middle of the uniforms

The sirens and the guns
Is a signpost pointing backwards
To a road you take but once
And once you have been marked off
By the indelible ink of the law
There's no hope in hell
That you will ever walk through the white man's door.

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 M. Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsis I щдзм 42 (2011) 2a 379-396
in the Songs of Roger Lucey |

At birth your racial classification determined which road you would take in
life. In a society where schools, hospitals, park benches, libraries, beaches, cinemas,
toilets and many other amenities and opportunities were segregated according to
race, the road you were sent on by the government's racial classification was severe.
Here the road was truly restrictive, policed by apartheid security forces. It became
a dangerous place to be. Even singing about the perils of apartheid state repression
was dangerous. Lucey's overt political lyrics, including a programme about him
and his music broadcast on Voice of America, attracted the attention of the police who
took immediate action. Security branch policeman Paul Erasmus was assigned the
task of putting and end to Lucey's career. As Erasmus explained:

The whole security monitoring apparatus came into effect. Firstly, we had the infor-
mer network. Most anti-government organizations were totally infiltrated so we'd get
information from human intelligence sources. Secondly, ... Roger's telephone was
monitored, as were other people in the industry or in the segment that he was part of.
So we knew after that if there were shows coming up or he'd been booked or he was
going to appear at whatever place. It was a simple matter then, of using this incident
as a sort of threatening stick with the next venue. I can't even remember how many
places I've phoned and said, 'Look, I understand that so and so is booked to perform
here, Roger Lucey. I'm from Scorpio...' (the organization that we used for all these
activities was a body that I constructed called Scorpio) ... 'If you let that bastard,
Lucey, that terrorist, Lucey, play we're going to blow the place up!'5

Erasmus also confiscated Lucey's records from those independent record

shops that stocked them, Lucey's mail was intercepted and his records were
submitted to the official government censorship board. The effect on Lucey's
career was devastating. Lucey described how opportunities suddenly closed:

We were playing and we were just getting harassed. We would arrive at a gig and the
manager would say to us, 'No, you're not playing tonight'. And we'd say, 'What are
you talking about?' and he would say, 'No, there seems to be some misunderstanding,
you're not on tonight'. And that would be it. That would be the end of the story. We'd
arrive at a festival we were booked to play at. And the guys would say 'You're not on'.
You know we'd have a contract. And you'd try to find the guy who's contracted us and
everyone's just scuttling around and nobody's there to take responsibility. And it hap-
pened over and over and over again. And when we did get little gigs . . . they basically
shut us down . . . They did a couple of nasty things like the teargas in the air-condition
systems and that sort of stuff. And I mean eventually we just got shut out. [But] I think
the worst was the invasion of my private property - my house, my home. And that
happened on a number of occasions, where I'd wake up in the middle of the night and
my house would be full of fully armed policemen.6

5 Paul ERASMUS, Author's interview, Johannesburg, 25.03.2002.

6 Roger LUCEY, Author's interview, Cape Town, 16.07.1998.

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■в IRASM а ом 42 An /о п*л' 2: о. 379-396 i7û о ос I М. Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsi
■в IRASM а ом 42 An (2011) /о п*л' 2: о. 379-396 i7û о ос s f R

As a result of ongoing direct and clandestine police harassment Lucey was no

longer able to pursue a full-time musical career. The Road Is Much Longer was
banned for distribution and possession and none of his songs could be played on
radio. He could no longer procure live gigs of any note. Lucey explained:

After Half Alive [Lucey's second album] my life collapsed. I mean, my marriage col-
lapsed, I became dependent on a very, very awful substance called Volkonol, and I
mean, everything fell apart.7

In a final act of desperation he sold all but one of his guitars:

I went through a period of about 6 years where I had pawned all my instruments
except for my guitar. I pawned all my instruments because I needed money for my
drug habit and that was it. It was a bad thing but we get ourselves into these terrible
situations.8

However, Lucey had a daughter who needed his financial support and he
gradually pulled his life together. He ended up working as a doorman to the
Chelsea Hotel, where he had previously performed in his hey day and then as a
bar man. He became trained as a sound specialist before getting work as a photog-
rapher and cameraman for World Television News. Even though he had begun
writing new songs during this period of difficulty, he wasn't able to perform them
live. Independent Record label Shifty Records included two of his songs on two
resistant compilation albums. Lucey also tried to resurrect his career by forming
a satirical country music band which played what Lucey referred to 'radical
country songs'.9 As such Lucey played under the pseudonym of Tighthead Fourie
and the Loose Forwards. The songs he sang at this time were politically bleak,
portraying a pessimistic image of the road to democracy. In »Spaces Tell Stories«
(1984) he despaired:

We all hope for a future

Of peaceful existence
But that future drifts further away
And the avenues to solve it
Become dead end streets.

He articulated a similar sense of bleakness in his most famous radical country

song »No Easy Walk To Freedom« (1986). The song was written at the time of the
Nationalist Government's declaration of a State of Emergency which placed the

'Ibid.

' Roger LUCEY, Author's interview, Cape Town, 31.03.2002.

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 M. Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsis I цздзм 42 (2011) 2a 379-396
in the Songs of Roger Lucey |

country under the rule of a virtual police state. In the song Lucey expressed the
bitter realisation that the struggle was more difficult than ever:

No easy walk to freedom

No easy way to carry the load
No easy walk to freedom
No easy way to the end of the road.

Roger's personal difficulties undoubtedly tainted his political outlook. One

cannot help but sense Lucey's personal frustration at a carèer in tatters and life on
the hold in lyrics like 'the future drifts further away' and 'no easy way to carry
that load'. This is more clearly demonstrated in his gender-conscious country
ballad »It Takes A Man To Cry« which, like »No Easy Walk To Freedom«, was
performed by Tighthead Fourie and the Loose Forwards:

I know I've felt the joys of life

I've walked some hard roads too

And broken hearts don't mean a thing

When your soul is broken too
Some men hide behind a smile
And some behind sweet talk

But I know when I'm losing ground

When to turn my back and walk.

At this stage the 'road' - both politically and personally - appeared as an

endless struggle. For a broken and fragile Lucey the struggle down the musical
road certainly seemed too formidable to tackle and he finally gave up on it, 'turned
his back and walked'.
Lucey disappeared from the musical landscape for over ten years. During
this ten-year period, in the face of political changes with the release of Nelson
Mandela from prison and the unbanning of the ANC in 1990 he was persuaded by
3rd Ear Music (who had recorded and released his debut album) to record the
songs from his Tighthead Fourie days. He agreed, but the album ( Running for
Cover 1990) was poorly marketed, received no radio play, making no impact at all,
and Lucey carried on with his career as a camera person.
In the meantime Paul Erasmus, the security branch policeman who acted
against Lucey was undergoing a journey of his own. He later admitted that
although he did a good job of sabotaging Lucey's career at the time he also began
to admire Lucey's music:

I secretly became a fan of his . . . transcribing his music. Sitting for hours, especially
after that first Voice of America tape. The quality was very bad. I sat for many, many
hours listening, with the rewind button, over and over and over and eventually the

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■n л ем üo /on*** о. ito 1QC м- Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsi
■n I RASM л *
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music started to get to me. So, I enjoyed it and later on, when I confisca
of records and tapes, I used to play it regularly. Especially I think in sort o
moments. You know what was happening in the country wasn't lost on
mean we weren't totally immune to it.10

In the early 1990s Erasmus resigned from the security branch an

from the South African Police. He began to write a book about his
and in 1995 published sections of the book in the Mail and Guardia
Regretting the impact of his interventions on Roger Lucey's music
driven by a sense of remorse, Erasmus published his revelations ab
providing Lucey with full disclosure about the sinister activities ab
was previously only partially aware. By this time, after years of harr
ences covering conflict zones around the world, Lucey had retired f
business and was working as an actor. Although initially angry abo
confession, Lucey was able to piece together his past and work towar
closure. He once again turned to songwriting to express his feeling
emotional outlet.

In 1995 Lucey had penned a song (»Running For Cover«)11 about his decision
to escape the turmoil of the conflict zones and return to an ordinary life. As he
explained:

I wrote quite a few songs around that time that reflected schisms of my own psyche
and songs like »Running For Cover« and certainly »Back In From The Anger« I think
tried to put a lid on that time, tried to describe what had happened.12

In »Running For Cover« (1995), an urgent rock song, Lucey described the
desperate need to flee the turmoil of his battle scarred past life in which he had
become a stranger to himself:

Running blind headlong into the eye of the night

Knowing I'll be alright I can survive till tomorrow . . .
Hold this stranger tonight
I'm running for cover.

In »Back In From The Anger« (1996), a song with strong gospel style chords
and just a piano accompanying Lucey's raspy voice, he describes the continuation
of his cathartic journey. Having run for cover he was able to go on to find peace
with himself, bury the troubles of his past and settle down to a new start:

10 Paul ERASMUS, Author's interview, Johannesburg, 25.03.2002.

11 Not on the Running For Cover album recorded in 1990.
12 Roger LUCEY, Author's interview, Cape Town, 31.03.2002.

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 M. Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsis I щдздд 42 (2011) 2u
in the Songs of Roger Lucey |

Did you ever see an old guitar in a pawnshop

And wonder how a singer got so low?
And did you ever hear an old song sung from a park bench
And wonder how it got so sad and slow?
Did you ever see a man who lost direction
Did it ever cross your mind just how it goes?
Some say that man is free, oh but man , that man's been me
And freedom don't just happen, freedom grows
And I'm back in from the anger of the winter
And I've bust out ofthat prison called the road
And I'm caught up in the comfort of afine house in the suburbs
That's my choice that's where my river's flowed.

Significantly at this moment Lucey returned to the precise road metaphor he

incorporated in the title track of his first album. It represented a significant musi-
cal marker in both his own and his country's life. This time he has escaped the
prison of the road which, seventeen years earlier, stretched dauntingly before
him, much longer than ever before. In a post-apartheid, democratic country he
was seemingly able to relax in the afterglow of a battle hard fought and won. As
he explained in 1998:

The job of - 1 think - the didactic in our society falls on the shoulders of young people
- those young passionate people. Гт an old passionate person, you know. My body
doesn't work so well anymore. You know, iťs like ten years of news journalism has
now taken its toll on me as well. I still make statements but more and more my role is
that of ... I've become more indulgent, I want to sing love songs you know, and I want
to entertain people.13

Having come to terms with his past and making a new life for himself as a
documentary producer, performing occasionally when he got the chance, Lucey
seemed to have reached a pleasant plateau. Yet stasis was not permitted to take
hold. In 2002 a documentary film about the Lucey and Erasmus encounter was
made for Freemuse, the Music and Human Rights Organisation. As the producer
of the film I asked the two protagonists if they would be prepared to meet each
other for the first time and have the encounter filmed as part of the documentary.
They agreed, and very amicably discussed their story, shook hands, putting the
past behind them. The two then went on to the Market Theatre where Lucey used
to perform, and accompanied by his acoustic guitar Lucey performed »The Road
Is Much Longer« for Paul Erasmus, a special show performed for an audience of
one. When Erasmus applauded at the end, the glimmer of a tear in his eye, the
significance of the song about travelling along a road seemed particularly

13 Roger LUCEY, Author's interview, Cape Town, 16.07.1998.

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■в а см At йпллл ' о о 7o чае M. Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsi
■в IRASM а см 42 At y (201 йпллл 1) ' ' 2: о о 379-396 7o чае . ,, 0 . n
y ' in . the ,, Sonas 0 of . n Roaer Lucev

poignant. The two have since gone on to represent Freemuse at a numb

national events, have spent much time together and now regard each
friends. After the experience, Lucey summed up his feelings about Er

I really do not have any grudges or hard feelings; I cannot find any anger
for that man. I think that he is going through a far harder time in his life
been through recently He probably has the most awful demons to face now
very cathartic.14

But while that particular story ends there, that's not the end of th
matter of speaking. In 2004 Lucey released a new album entitled Home
no surprise to see the 'road' metaphor reappearing. For Lucey (2004),
signified »the last leg of a journey that began in times we once thou
never end . . . and while the road may still be much longer, it's a road that
inevitably, to our new Homeland«. It surely seemed that Lucey had r
from his time of restoration and was ready to continue on his journ
home. In a love ballad called »Could I Still Touch You« (2004) the road
seems too long to cope with, but waits invitingly, to take him to his lo

Take me on that highway

Take me home once more
Like a firelight
That loves a winter

I am on this journey
To your door.

When the moon gets lost and leaves us cold

When the world gets small and we grow old
When there's nothing left that's left untold
Could I still touch you?

Yet Lucey has not turned his back on the political road either. At a
schools workshop after the release of the album he explained his son
position to a scholar who had asked him how his lyrics had changed
apartheid era:

The situation that I see myself in is different, and it is not as extreme as it

was in my twenties. You know, we no longer have deaths in detention; we
have people being locked up without trial, the kind of dire situation that
in. But my songs still try and reflect the place that I come from and the plac
in... The content is about looking at where we are. So, time has changed

14 Roger LUCEY, Author's interview, Cape Town, 31.03.2002.

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 M. Drewett: The Road From Orisis to Catharsis I |рд^[щ 42 (2011) 2" ЗТЭ-ЗЭ(
in the Songs of Roger Lucey |

have changed as I have become older. You know, I felt that when I was in my twenties
that it was a complete indulgence to sing a love song. But that was my personal view.
I thought South Africa at that time in the late '70s was so extreme that it was, as I say
an indulgence. Of course that has changed but regrettably as I get older I have less
love to sing about. So there we go!15

Since the onset of democracy in 1994 Lucey had noted an ominous tendency
for South Africans to forget the past, the struggle towards democracy and what
they had previously fought for. Increasingly attention has been focused on mate-
rial accumulation for the wealthy while the poor and downtrodden are left, once
again, to fend for themselves. The democratic struggle for the poor has been
forgotten and has been rewritten as the struggle for the wealthy. In the fast-paced
rhythmic »Rewriting History« (2004) Lucey takes issue with the country's
collective political amnesia. While in his personal life the road to home is nearing
its destination, the broader picture reveals a political road which yet again
stretches into the distance:

And the road it just gets longer

And further from our past
And our memories just get shorter
And the future comes so fast.

And they say that there's no reason

To remember what we've seen

But you won't know where you're going

If you don't know where you've been . . .

There's no road without a story

There's no journey that's been in vain
There's no peace without atonement
There's no joy without the pain.

More than any other South African that I am aware of, Roger Lucey has
repeatedly returned to the metaphor of the road in his songs. As has been shown,
for Lucey the 'road' symbolises a constantly intertwining journey of his personal
life and the political life of the country he holds so dear. As such, Lucey's songs
have been a companion in which, throughout his adult life, he has sought and
found a means of expression and refuge. As Paul Zollo (2003: preface) notes:
»Songwriting is much more than a mere craft. Iťs a conscious attempt to connect
with the unconscious; a reaching beyond ordinary perceptions to grasp images
that resonate like dreams, and melodies that haunt and spur the heart«. Robert

5 Roger LUCEY, Schools Workshop Question and Answer Session, 28.05.2005.

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 idIRASM
id IRASM лом
лом 42 42 >10
>10 (201 ,-n^i 1,-n^i
) 2: o. 1 2: o.,ûc
379-396 379-396 ,ûc I M. Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsis

Neustadt (2004: 129) takes this point further, suggesting that »The combination of
music's sonic, textual and symbolic properties affect a person's psychological and
emotional balance.« Music thus allows the singer-songwriter to enter into a
therapeutic mode of expression and communication through a specific combina-
tion of musical sounds, metaphoric images, lyrical formations and vocalising in
ways which capture what they think and feel. This has particular relevance for
protest singer-songwriters. As Nuno Guimarães-Costa, Miguel Pina e Cunha and
João Vieira da Cunha (2009: 89-90) maintain, »protest songs help ordinary people
to cope with their everyday challenges and make sense of the social world around
them«. By envisaging his own personal and his country's political processes as
intertwining journeys along a road, with its mixed connotations of escape,
freedom, structure, challenge, obstacle and movement, Roger Lucey has been able
to articulate his ongoing attempts to grapple with life's challenges.
Importantly, this paper has not been concerned with the impact of his songs
on Roger Lucey's audience, although we have seen that in at least one instance,
that of his nemesis, Paul Erasmus, the effect could be profound. Rather, the focus
of this paper has been on how songwriting can be an intimate means of expres-
sion, of telling one's story and updating it over and over, and in this case, taking
the writer on a journey from crisis to catharsis, as aptly captured in Lucey's slow
ballad, »Soft Glow Of Dreams« off the Homeroad (2004) album:

When you're stranded with nowhere to go

Killing time, killing memories and pain
When you're out at the end of the road
When you're blinded by your past again
As the seeds of despair start to grow
. . . The only way home
Is in the soft glow of dreams.

Roger Lucey, 3rd Ear Music and Shifty Records are acknowledged for granting
permission to quote lyrics referred to in this paper.

References

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■daču ja íon^v о. ото ooc M. Drewett: The Road From Crisis to Catharsi:
■daču I RASM 42 ja 4 íon^v (2011) ' 2: о. 379-396 ото ooc . 0 ,n
4 ' . in the Sonas 0 of ,n Roaer Lucev

Put od krize do katarze u pjesmama Rogera Luceya

U kasnim 1970-ima glazbenik Roger Lucey pjevao je protesine pjesme protiv neprav-
da apartheidske vlade u Južnoj Africi. U odgovoru na to južnoafrička je policija zadužila
policijskog agenta sigurnosti Paula Erasmusa za zaustavi Luceyevu glazbu. Erasmus je
proveo tajnu djelatnost protiv Luceya i na krajů ga prisilio da se odřekne karijere glazbe-
nika. Skromnih vještina i s obitelji koju je morao uzdržavati, Lucey je bio prisiljen prihvatiti
se svakoga posla, uključujuči i to da je bio vratar i barmen u lokalima gdje je nekoč bio
izvoditelj. Na posljetku je čak bio primoran prodati sve osim jedne gitare, simbolički po-
tvrdujuči na taj náčin kraj svoje glazbeničke karijere. Posvetio se karijeri u novinstvu i po-
stupno stekao položaj dopisnika o vijestima, pokrivajuci dogadaje iz zona sukoba po
čitavom svijetu. Sredinom 1990-ih Lucey se povukao iz stresnoga života novinara i postup-
no vratio u život glazbe, cesto uz manje zahtjevne poslové u medijima.
Na širém planu Južna se Afrika sredinom 1990-ih vratila demokraciji. Pokušaj zemlje
da raskrsti sa svojom prošlošču dijelom se ostvario djelatnošču Povjerenstva za istinu i
pomirbu (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) u okvirima koje su se počinitelji zločina
apartheida mogli prijaviti za pomilovanje u zamjenu za potpuno priznanje o okrutnostima
koje su počinili u doba apartheida. U to je vrijeme Erasmus javno priznao svoju djelatnost
kao policijski agent sigurnosti i na krajů svjedočio pred Povjerenstvom za istinu i pomirbu .
Priznao je svoju djelatnost protiv Rogera Luceya. U tom je trenutku Lucey čuo za ta otkriča,
i ta mu je perspektiva omogucila da sastavi dijelove u razaranju njegove karijere.
Tako kako ju predstavlja ovaj članak, Luceyeva se priča temelji na nizu intervjua s
Luceyem i Erasmusom te na riječima i glazbi Luceyevih pjesama. Tijekom cijele Luceyeve
karijere metafora o 'putu' središte je njegova razumijevanja južnoafričkog puta u demokra-
ciju i njegove vlastite dionice na tom putu. Članak ispituje snažnu ulogu glazbe (te sliku
'puta' u Luceyevim pjesmama) u izražavanju čežnje pojedinca u sudaru s velikim društvenim
i političkim nejednakostima i o pokušajima toga pojedinca da se nagodi s vlastitom prošlošču
i prošlošču svoje zemlje s povoljnog motrišta na temelju novog demokratskog oprosta. Kao
što Lucey objašnjava, uloga glazbe u njegovu pokušaju da se razračuna sa svojom trau-
matskom prošlošču imala je katarktički karakter. To mu je omogučilo da se pomiri ne samo
sa svojom vlastitom prošlošču, nego i s osobom koja je dokrajčila njegovu karijeru. Luceye-
va glazba suočila ga je s Erasmusom i izvršila je snažan utjecaj na krajnju pomirbu dvaju
ranijih protivníka. Pokazuje se da sposobnost glazbe da artikulira osječaje pjevača i teksto-
pisca potencijalno vodi računa o kontekstu sukoba i ozdravljenja pjevača-tekstopisca, ovi-
sno o pozicioniranju pojedinca o kojem je riječ.

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