Mama Shabalala Lyrics - Johnny Clegg & Savuka

An old lady walking down the dusty farm road 

Looking for a simple home 

She doesn't want anything extremely smart 

And she doesn't need a telephone 

She's the child of a refugee running from the zulu war 

Living from hand to mouth, dodging the wrong arm of the law 

She's old and she's bent, her eyes can hardly see 

And she's going home forever to weenen county 

Chorus 

Uhamba njalo wemashabala 

Ukhumbula ku-phi? 

Uhamba njalo wemashabala 

Ukhumbula ku-phi wena? 

Ukhumbula ku-phi wena? 

Uthwala 'nzima wemashabalala 

Iya-phi indlela? 

Uthwala 'nzima wemashabalala 

Iya-phi indlela? 

Izinto zomhlaba 

Izinto zomhlaba 

She's built more homes than fingers on her hands 

A sharecropper's wife living on county crown land 

And then they wrested the harvest from the land and it's lords 

And when her man died she could cry no more tears 

And she had lost everything that she ever had to lose 

So she picks up her walking stick and puts on her car-tyre shoes 

And she's walking in a dream listening for that special sound 

The echo of the plough whip over weenen county ground 

"weenen county you took my man" she says 

"you took my home, you took my land 

You left me all alone - now I'm coming home." 

Weenen county in the springtime 

Hadeda's on the wing 

Blue morning 

Blue morning 

Repeat chorus and fade out