Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Wednesday search challenge (October 2, 2013): What's the name of that song?

[ Note:  The search challenge I had planned for today has been sidetracked by the government shutdown.  While you wouldn't think that web server data sets would require human attention, it seems they do.  In any case, I have to postpone our planned Challenge and we'll do the one I'd planned for next week... ] 


While driving on Highway 101 in San Francisco on a beautiful blue day, I turned the radio on and heard a fantastic song that I wanted to get.  Love it.  Now, get it.  

The problem: I was driving alone, so I couldn’t use anything like Shazam or Soudhound to recognize it!  Even worse, by the time I exited the freeway, the song was done.  Now what?

All I remembered of the song was the lyric: 

            “...the invisible power of the hidden hand of fate.”  

Even more puzzlingly, part of the song was in a language I don’t understand. It wasn’t Spanish, German, French, Italian, or any of the “obvious” languages.

Can you help me figure this out?  (This really is enough information for you to do a search for it.)  In particular….

1.  What’s the name of the song? 

2.  What language are they singing in?  (And what does the lyric mean?)   

3.  I’d really like to see this band perform.  Will they play somewhere near me sometime in 2014?  If so, where?  (For this purpose, any venue in the San Francisco bay area will do.)   

Tell us HOW you found the song!  (And how long it took you...) 

Search on!


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24 comments:

  1. krossbowOctober 2, 2013 at 7:30 AM

    To rule out the obvious I searched for [ "the invisible power of the hidden hand of fate" lyrics ] with and without quotes. Nothing much. I then tried different putting quotes around [ "invisible power" "hidden hand of fate" lyrics ] Still nothing.

    Being a habitual lyrics searcher and also having the read the story behind http://www.kissthisguy.com/ The archive of misheard lyrics, I searched for just part of the phrase [ "invisible power" lyrics ] and I get a song by that name by the Warmen but the rest of the lyrics don't match.

    I add [ "invisible power" hidden lyrics ] Warmen still.

    [ "invisible power" hidden hand lyrics ] and get Johnny Clegg "Asilazi" and see the lyrics are “...the invisible power of the hidden hand of hate.” http://www.maxilyrics.com/johnny-clegg-asilazi-lyrics-6254.html


    1. What’s the name of the song? - Asilazi

    Search [asliazi] and find videos of Johnny Clegg performing with the Soweto Gospel Choir.
    Try copying and pasting THINA ILANGA LETHU LIZOFIKA NINI to Google Translate and get nothing.

    Search [ soweto language ] for languages spoken and the Wikipedia article tells me there are 11 languages including Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, Venda, and Tsonga.

    I try [ translate asilazi ] and get a knowledge panel it means "he must" in Swahili but that wasn't one of the languages above.

    [ soweto gospel choir language asilazi ] gives me http://lyricstranslate.com/en/Johnny-Clegg-Asilazi-lyrics.html

    http://lyricstranslate.com
    Asilazi, asilazi thina ilanga lethu lizofika nini
    Silindile ngenhliziyo, yonke kodwa senzeni na?
    Asilazi, asilazi thina ilanga lethu lizofika nini
    Silindile ngenhliziyo, yonke kodwa senzeni na?

    in Zulu language:
    2x
    (We don't know when our day of freedom will come)
    (We have been, waiting for it with all our hearts,)
    (What have we done to deserve this?)

    2. What language are they singing in? - Zulu

    Search [soweto gospel choir schedule san francisco 2014 ] http://www.sowetogospelchoir.com/Performances_Current.html

    3. They have 2 performances in California upcoming and looking at the map it looks like Arcata is closer than La Jolla
    Arcata, CA April 8, 2014 John Van Duzer Theatre at Humboldt State University

    30 minutes

    ReplyDelete
  2. jonOctober 2, 2013 at 8:03 AM

    Dan, The quickest way find out the title is to phone the station and ask them to check the playlog.

    However, I assumed you had misheard some of the lyrics. Mondegreen they call it.

    So, I tried several variations of [lyric (parts of your quote)] After a few dead ends I found that this worked SEARCH [ lyric invisible power of the hidden]

    1) And up jumped Johnny Clegg with his tune Asilazi http://www.johnnyclegg.com/lyrics/onelife.html and the chorus in English gives your quoted phrase with 1 letter changed:: You know
    Its hard to fight
    On your own against the fading of the light
    From the school to the church to heart of the state
    To the invisible power of the hidden hand of hate
    Where was I when this all began
    From the father, to the son, to the man
    So I've got to go now and face this day

    Power of hate not fate

    It features the Soweto Gospel Choir too and can be heard on Youtube.

    2) The language that is not English is Zulu

    2) I would suggest the meaning is that hate is invisible and people will have to work together to overcome it

    3) http://www.5gig.com/Johnny+Clegg-tourdates/ Shows he (they?) will be in Berkeley at Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse 4 May 2014

    It took a good 15 minutes what with chasing down a bunch dead ends

    jon

    ReplyDelete
  3. Andrew WalshOctober 2, 2013 at 8:12 AM

    1) The name of the song is Asilazi by Johnny Clegg. I first searched for [lyrics "the invisible power of the hidden hand of fate"] but that didn't return any results. My next thought was that I may have misheard or incorrectly remembered a stray word, so I tried a few other queries with fewer keywords. [lyrics "invisible power" "hidden hand"] ended up working for me, and I saw that it indeed had lyrics from another language and the line was actually "hidden hand of hate."

    2) One of the lyrics sites indicated it was Zulu, but I wanted to confirm this from a more reputable source. The Johnny Clegg official website indicates his Zulu influences and that he records many songs in this language. For the meaning, Google Translate, my usual go-to source, doesn't do Zulu. But I figured a lyrics site would have the translation, and his official site was my first try. It worked:

    (We don't know when our will come)
    (We are waiting with a full heart, for we do not)
    (know what we have done, that our takes so long)

    3) The Johnny Clegg site has November tour dates posted and the shows are in Switzerland and France. Another Google search [johnny clegg tour dates] brought up more show on Ticketmaster. It had one in the LA area on May 10 2014, so we're getting a little closer. Since it's likely they would play more than one show on a visit to California, I kept looking. Pollstar.com had a more detailed schedule and there's a show in Berkeley on May 4 2014. Since I've never used this site I wanted to confirm, so a quick [johnny clegg show berkeley 2014] brought back a lot of other sources confirming that date.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Andrew WalshOctober 2, 2013 at 8:35 AM

    Oops, forgot the amount of time it took. I'd say around 10 minutes of searching, but longer to type it all up!

    ReplyDelete
  5. JanineOctober 2, 2013 at 8:38 AM

    1. the song is called Asilazi, and is performed by Johnny Clegg and the Soweto Gospel Choir.

    2. the language that part of the song is sung in is Zulu, one of the official languages of South Africa, where the performers are from. Here they are:

    Asilazi, asilazi thina ilanga lethu lizofika nini
    Silindile ngenhliziyo, yonke kodwa senzeni na?
    =
    We don't know when our day of freedom will come
    We have been waiting for it with all our hearts,
    What have we done to deserve this?
    (Credit goes to lyricstranslate.com)

    3. If you want to see Johnny Clegg, you are out of luck. He is touring South Africa and Europe, but I cant find any North American dates. The Soweto Gospel Choir is coming to Arcata on April 8th, however, and to San Diego on April 16th and 17th 2014. Not that close to SF- but hey, if you have nothing better to do on those days...

    It took me about a minute to find the song on google. The hand of fate threw me at first, until I kept the search term fate but kept hand - then it turned out its really hand of hate.

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownOctober 2, 2013 at 9:08 AM

    The song seems to be "Asilazi" by Johnny Clegg (found through standard search of 'lyric "of the hidden hand of fate"', as the full lyric seemed to show too many parameters and came back with multiple songs - this pared it down).
    The song is a mixture of Zulu and English (according to Clegg's wikipedia entry, his songs are a mix of these two languages), with the lyric translated as:

    We don't know when our day of freedom will come
    We have been waiting fo it with all our hearts,
    What have we done to deserve this?

    According to lyricstranslate.com/en/Johnny-Clegg_Asilazi-lyrics.html which I went to after attempting google translate (which doesn't work on Zulu), isizulu.net (which disapproves of Google "services"), and babylon. After failing at those three attempts, I ran a search for 'Clegg Asilazi lyric translation', which sent me to the mentioned site.

    As for tour dates in the bay area, according to his official site at johnnyclegg.com (listed at the bottom of his Wikipedia entry), there are no dates in North America planned on the calendar.

    This took me about 4 minutes to check.

    ReplyDelete
  7. remmijOctober 2, 2013 at 9:28 AM

    May 4th, 2014 Freight & Salvage – Berkeley, CA
    Johnny
    Z•U•L•U/Soweto Gospel Choir

    ReplyDelete
  8. AliOctober 2, 2013 at 9:29 AM

    The name of the song is Asilazi by Johnny Clegg, with some lyrics in Zulu. He's playing in Berkeley on May 4, 2014. :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. AliOctober 2, 2013 at 9:39 AM

    Oops, forgot to say how I found the answers, how long it took, and what the Zulu lyrics mean! It took me 8 minutes. I started with the full lyric and quickly realized that wasn't correct, so I searched for smaller parts of it. "invisible power of the hidden" brought up Johnny Clegg as the first result. He conveniently has the lyrics with translations on his website! I think Wikipedia had the Zulu tip which is easily verified in several places (e.g. the books he wrote). Here is the translation according to Clegg himself: We don't know when our will come/We are waiting with a full heart, for we do not/know what we have done, that our takes so long. I see Google is working on getting Zulu added to Translate, so that would be another way to verify this translation in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Ramon GonzalezOctober 2, 2013 at 10:11 AM

    Good day, Dr. Russell, fellow SearchResearchers

    Searched:

    [song lyrics finder] look for suggestions... Nothing

    ["*** the hidden hand of fate"]...Nothing

    ["invisible power of the hidden hand"]

    Found: http://www.johnnyclegg.com/lyrics/onelife.html
    Ctrl F: "invisible power of the hidden hand

    [Asilazi language]
    Found: Zulu
    http://lyricstranslate.com/en/Johnny-Clegg-Asilazi-lyrics.html

    [johnny clegg]
    http://www.johnnyclegg.com/

    [johnny clegg asilazi live] in videos
    Johnny Clegg Asilazi Live Fiesta Sete 2007


    [johnny clegg tour san francisco]
    http://seatgeek.com/johnny-clegg-band-tickets/
    Ctrl F: CA


    [san francisco bay area]

    Cities and towns: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area
    Ctrl F each city


    Answers

    1. What’s the name of the song?
    A. Asilazi performed by Johnny Clegg with his bands Juluka and Savuka,

    2. What language are they singing in? (And what does the lyric mean?)
    A: Zulu, African language.

    http://lyricstranslate.com
    Asilazi, asilazi thina ilanga lethu lizofika nini
    Silindile ngenhliziyo, yonke kodwa senzeni na?
    Asilazi, asilazi thina ilanga lethu lizofika nini
    Silindile ngenhliziyo, yonke kodwa senzeni na?

    Means:

    We don't know when our day of freedom will come)
    (We have been, waiting for it with all our hearts,)
    (What have we done to deserve this?)


    3. I’d really like to see this band perform. Will they play somewhere near me sometime in 2014? If so, where? (For this purpose, any venue in the San Francisco bay area will do.)

    A: May 3, Saratoga, may 4 Berkeley,

    ReplyDelete
  11. Jeff DowdyOctober 2, 2013 at 10:35 AM

    1. Asilazi by Johnny Clegg
    At first I tried to search for all of it as a phrase. Nothing. Then I tried separating out the two key parts "invisible power" "hidden hand of fate". Dungeons and Dragons. Then I tried "invisible power" "hidden hand" fate lyrics. Came across Johnny Clegg. It was "hidden hand of hate".
    2. Swahili -
    ASILAZI,ASILAZI THINA,
    ILANGA LETHU LIZO FIKA NINI
    (We don't know when our will come)
    SILINDE,NGENHLIZIYO YONKE,
    KOODWA SENZENI-NA?
    (We are waiting with a full heart, for we do not)
    (know what we have done, that our takes so long)
    I tried Google translate to get a better translation. But was unsuccessful. So, I guess this is best. I wonder if it means 'ours' instead of 'our'.
    3. Sun 05/04/14 Berkeley, CA Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse http://www.pollstar.com/resultsArtist.aspx?ID=85171
    The dates listed on the site don't include 2014. I clicked on "management" SRO Artists, Inc. www.sroartists.com Then artists - Johnny Clegg. Then "itinerary". Bingo.
    35 minutes with a few interruptions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dan RussellOctober 3, 2013 at 8:06 PM

      Good job. Separating the lyric out into parts is another good strategy, especially if fragments of the whole are correct (but the composite isn't).

      Delete
  12. UnknownOctober 2, 2013 at 10:46 AM

    Hi,

    well first I tried in Google
    [“the invisible power of the hidden hand of fate”].
    Nothing likely appears. I try without the quotes and add lyrics – still nothing likely.
    On the basis that lyrics are often misheared I try various combinations of [“invisible power”] and [“hidden hand”] but still no obvious solution.
    Hm – time for a bit of contemplation whilst continuing with my day job!
    Brain says need database of lyrics to try this search.
    There are many of these and I end up on :

    http://www.songlyrics.com/

    In their search box I try [“invisible power” hidden].

    A few suggestions appear and ahaa, no 3 is :

    “the invisible power of the hidden hand of Hate” - which does kinda change the meaning of the lyric but would easily be misheared.

    This is a lyric from a song called Asilazi by Johnny Clegg in an album called Human.
    It also contains a rendering of the foreign language.
    A search on Wikipedia for this singer gives various bits of information including a link to a webpage.
    A search on Google seems to indicate that the language is Zulu although I have a bit of a blank about Google translate and fail to use it.

    On the webpage, there is info about a tour but sadly you might need to visit Europe to attend!


    http://www.johnnyclegg.com/tour.html

    BUT, a search on YouTube for the song by Johnny Clegg brings up a video where he is singing it with the Soweto Gospel Choir.

    A search for their website finds :


    http://www.sowetogospelchoir.com/

    And on here there is information on their tours, including a tour to North America where they will visit California in April 2014.
    So that might be the closest you'll get in California!

    In total, this took me about 25-30 active mins but I did have about 30 mins in the middle where I let my brain cogitate in the background on a different way to tackle the problem. It worked too.

    Sarah

    ReplyDelete
  13. Ramon GonzalezOctober 2, 2013 at 10:55 AM

    Another video from the song: Johnny Clegg - VOENA - Asilazi

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. remmijOctober 2, 2013 at 12:33 PM

      Ramón - nice catch on the Clegg/VOENA choir performance back in May, 2011 in Benicia, CA. that would have been a treat to see and close enough for Dan to catch…
      VOENA Choir
      fb
      SFGate write up
      Benicia proximity and why doesn't Dan live in Danville?

      Delete
    2. Ramon GonzalezOctober 2, 2013 at 1:54 PM

      Thanks Remmij! same to you with the Carriage House.

      While I was searching the answer I found 2 other songs. They didn´t match for Dr. Russell search; but, they included "Hand of fate":

      Def Leppard - "Billy's Got A Gun" Lyrics | MetroLyrics : "As the rain came down on the crimson ground was the hand of fate."

      Grant Lee Phillips - "Hidden Hand" Lyrics | MetroLyrics : "Youll be plucked like a fig by the hidden hand of fate." And in some other part of the song mentions the phrase "Hidden hand of fate"

      Delete
    3. remmijOctober 2, 2013 at 4:40 PM

      we were traveling similar tracks - you had [SeatGeek] earlier and I had looked at Bryan G. Phillips/Grant Lee Buffalo/Grant-Lee Phillips too… but didn't see any non-english lyrics and after listening a bit, decided he was too "folkie" to be a Dr. D fav - speculative supposition…
      The Pollstar site Jeff Dowdy found was a good source for concert dates also - I don't think I would have clicked the 'itinerary' link off the SRO site, the way he did - pays to check those things out.
      G-LP
      I sometimes forget to check Wikipedia for musical artists… sometimes a useful aggregator.
      J. Clegg

      Delete
  14. remmijOctober 2, 2013 at 11:24 AM

    oh, the HOW - thought an ear witness might be like an eye witness and only a fragment would be accurate -
    tried [invisible power of the hidden hand ] and Clegg popped up, saw the Zulu translation and went from there.
    regarding a venue - Carriage House Theatre – Saratoga, CA (May 3 2014) would be another possible Bay location -
    tickets don't seem to be available yet - you might go on a wild hare and consider Broadway Theatre – Saskatoon, Canada, Apr 25 2014 - nothing like Spring in Saskatchewan.
    time: ~ 15 minutes

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dan RussellOctober 2, 2013 at 11:29 AM

      I'm always curious about your search process, Remmij. How did you find the Carriage House venue?

      Delete
    2. remmijOctober 2, 2013 at 12:00 PM

      used [johnny clegg california concert dates 2014] - SeatGeek was the top return…
      serp
      SeatGeek
      … assuming web server data sets maintenance isn't just a prelude… Canada may become more appealing all the time. How did the quasi-Etruscan she wolf turn out?
      "Note: The search challenge I had planned for today has been sidetracked by the government shutdown. While you wouldn't think that web server data sets would require human attention…"
      isn't all activity/search processes accessible to Google via the Bluffdale nexus? - right, the shutdowny thingy ;)

      Delete
  15. Rosemary MOctober 2, 2013 at 10:23 PM

    Step One - Query "the invisible power of the hidden hand of fate"

    http://www.songlyrics.com/johnny-clegg/asilazi-lyrics/

    Result - Johnny Clegg - Asilazi Lyrics
    Album: Human. Genre: African

    Step Two - Query "asilazi language"

    Result http://www.appleseedmusic.com/johnnyclegg/humanx.html

    " Asilazi’ is sung in Zulu and English and describes the problems facing South Africa in 2010."

    Step Three - Query "johnny clegg san francisco 2014"

    http://www.pollstar.com/resultsArtist.aspx?ID=85171

    Result - looks like May 2014 will give you a few dates in the California area. Checking maps Saratoga, Ca. on May 3, 2014 is your closest at the Carriage House Theatre.

    Summary - Took short amount of time (10 minutes) but I got to this challenge late and I believe it was made easy due to the SERP page rising to the surface on my initial search. I assume this is what's meant by improving a page ranking & is based on traffic from our searchers leading the way.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rosemary MOctober 2, 2013 at 11:49 PM

      Edit - Oops I just realized that I actually typed "hate" instead of 'fate' which accidentally gave me the correct answer. That seems to have caught a few of us with the total phrase not showing up. Normally I would have cut & paste but didn't this time. I like how others used some of the keywords in the lyrics and worked with them. Good idea.

      Delete
    2. krossbowOctober 3, 2013 at 5:10 AM

      @Rosemary M One might say that fate played a hand in your mistake. Always nice when that happens. :-)

      Delete
    3. Dan RussellOctober 3, 2013 at 9:56 AM

      Better fate than hate!!

      Delete

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