It’s a song by Battery 9. I found a site with a lot of their lyrics - Battery 9 lyrics - but there’s nothing from the album Straks on there (or anywhere else, near as I can tell).
At 1:24, 3:02 and 4:41, there’s a set of lines that repeat:
Ek’s die spook in jou spie(g)el. (“I’m the ghost in your mirror.”)
Ek’s die gat in jou keel. (“I’m the hole in your throat.”)
Ek’s die klip in jou skoen. (“I’m the rock in your shoe.”)
Ek’s die wond wat nooit heel. (“I’m the wound that never heals.”)
Ek’s die [???] in jou [???] (Geen idee! “I’m the something in your something.”)
Ek’s jou gesondheid wat kwyn. (“I’m your health that’s failing.”)
Ek sal jou ondermyn. (“I will undermine you.”)
I’m absolutely certain about most of these lines, and fairly sure about the first one. But the fifth line? I can’t even be sure of the sounds. I think the first word starts with “st”. The other word sounds like it ends in “sj”, but that seems unlikely. I’m guessing the other word is “bors” or “mors” or “wors”, but the meaning doesn’t seem to fit the pattern (things that can undermine someone).
Help? It’s a techno song and there’s a lot of noise and distortion - this is really hard.
(I’ve been trying to teach myself Afrikaans since last year, and I’ve been translating Afrikaans songs to build my vocabulary. Most of the time I can find lyrics online, and I can read them while listening to the song, with a dictionary to help with the unfamiliar words. This song has been a challenge, because I’m still not at the point where I can recognize the words as I hear them.)
I was leaning toward “bors”, too. The first word almost certainly starts with ‘s’, and probably starts with “st”. I can’t even be sure of the vowel!
Could it be “die staak (stake?) in jou bors”? It sounds like “ste” rather than “sta”, though. I just can’t find a word that starts with “ste” that fits the sentence.
Weird - the dictionary I have gives a meaning of “stake, pole” for “staak”. But it’s from 30 years ago.
“Die steek in jou bors” is plausible - a stab in the chest would certainly undermine someone.
Is there a word that rhymes with “bors” that can mean “brain” or “mind” or “head”? It almost sounds like he’s saying “stem” or “stemme”.
This has been driving me nuts for weeks. The noisier parts of the song are going to be even harder - so far all I have is “dis net 'n kwessie van tyd” and “nou is dit te laat”.
I have to confess that Afrikaans is my second language, so I checked with my egte Afrikaans co-worker and she said she only knows “staak” as “labour strike”. I asked, “What would you call the thing you use to kill vampires?” and she said, “Probably 'n houtpaal.”
Not as far as I know - and it definitely sounds more like “steek” than “stem” to me.
Yeah, the rest of the song is even less clear. Good luck!
If you don’t mind my asking, how old were you when you started learning Afrikaans?
You’re probably right. The meaning certainly fits.
Glad it’s not just me. Hopefully this will prove worthwhile - this songwriter has a delightfully dark sense of humor. He’s also written a song about a guy who was fed up with finding his place ransacked so he lay in wait for the burglars, and another song about a guy who killed someone with his car while drinking and just drove off.
I am first language Afrikaans, but I can’t watch the youtube video - find another source for the song and I’ll check it out.
Just from the suggested lyrics so far - “steek in jou bors” could mean the literal stab in your chest, could also mean the stabbing pain in your chest, like a heart attack or just heartache. It can also mean “stuck in your chest” - compare the expression “steek in die keel” meaning literally “stuck in the throat” but figuratively “hard to swallow”. So he’s either talking about a sucking chest wound, lung cancer or a heavy heart - that’s Industrial for you.
Thanks - I hadn’t realized that a youtube video wouldn’t be watchable everywhere. Alas, I can’t find a link online that’s not to the youtube video. I can PM you a link to a copy of the file.
And I wasn’t sure about the first line. He could very well be saying “spieël”, but I’d swear I heard the ‘g’ in there. I could be all wrong about that line - he could be saying something completely unrelated.
Do you use it regularly, like at work or in your daily life?
(Just wondering. When I was there last year, it seemed like English was the default in public life in the bigger areas, like Cape Town and Sandton, but in Bloemfontein and in some of the smaller towns people tried speaking to me in Afrikaans first.)
I don’t use Afrikaans very much. I live in a very English suburb of Cape Town. I work in the HQ of a national organisation with people from all over South Africa - and therefore speakers of many different languages - so communication at work is almost always English.
When I am in a situation where people are talking Afrikaans I try to do the same. I can follow along fine, but sometimes I can’t express myself fluently and have to fall back to English.
Afrikaans is actually more spoken in Cape Town than English, but not in the most touristy areas or more posh suburbs. But all over the Cape Flats and the Northern Suburbs it’s the default and people will speak Afrikaans to me first. Obviously not the case if you look like a tourist.
Oh, and I never use Afrikaans at work, but I do in shops all the time.
Fair enough. I wasn’t in the country very long - only a two week holiday. The few days we were in Cape Town, we were still adjusting to being there. SA has a reputation here for being dangerous, so being wary and cautious inhibited our experience a bit. We mostly cabbed it between our hotel and restaurants and limited our walking to the waterfront.
By the time we got to Bloemfontein we were a bit more comfortable walking around, and people there talked to us in Afrikaans (and switched to English when we clearly didn’t understand).
Next year we’re planning to go back and drive from Cape Town through Northern Cape to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. I’ll be looking for opportunities to use my (still limited) Afrikaans.
Forgot to add, we listened to the radio while on the road. The radio announcers on OFM mostly spoke Afrikaans, but on KFM they spoke more English. I’m a bit surprised this is so, given what you’ve told me about Cape Town.
In the Northern Cape you’ll get plenty of opportunity.
Cape Afrikaners (White and Coloured) still listen to mostly English-language music, and KFM is nowadays pretty much English only even though it didn’t start that way.
People who mostly speak Afrikaans still mostly consume English media and tend to be fully bilingual.
We went through a corner of Northern Cape on the road between Beaufort West and Bloemfontein. We stopped to eat in Colesberg, and I think that was the only time I heard any Afrikaans pop music the entire trip. Kinda disappointing - I’d hoped to hear more. And the hostess greeted us in Afrikaans. Come to think of it, she was one of the few people I talked to there who seemed less fluent in English.
We were surprised not just how much English music, but how much American music we heard on the radio. It was a lot of the same artists we hear here, but it was different songs than the ones that got airplay here. Also didn’t realize that the default language had changed on KFM over time. Interesting.
