Mistaken identity

The Tutus describe themselves as “a little pop ‘n roll kwela disco punk band from Pretoria” and their songs are finely drawn vignettes about what it is to be young and living in a small South African world.

When that fantastic boy band Rabbitt had a hit with Charlie in 1976, you had to keep your lead character unisex to be a man singing a song about loving another man in South Africa. Or, as with Charlie, start a rumour that it was a love song for a dog (yep, bestiality was apparently preferable to homosexuality). That’s absurdity, 1970s style. Peter is absurdity for the 21st century, a song about how the male protagonist can’t love a girl because she’s called Peter.

How Peter got her name is a very South African story about paternalism and family. She had a “sport-crazed dad, in desperate need of a son, who had only 12 daughters, and she was the last one”. As with all great songs, we can read an entire life in a few words and gain insight into a society with a simple verse.

So Peter doesn’t share the narrator’s embarrassment. “Named after granddad, no, she wasn’t shy no-how, introducing herself at the top of her lungs, she wasn’t shy, not now.” The last two words hint at a long, successful struggle to accept her name, one mirrored in the narrator’s own failure to do so.

And this despite how near to perfection Peter is. It’s not a romantically blinkered perfection of a teen crush — Peter has all the usual human failings and emotional aporia, and these the narrator can deal with. “Well, she had all the right looks, and all the right qualities, all the right smiles, in all the right quantities, all the right perfections, all the right places, all the right flaws, and all the right spaces.”

The only sticking point is her name and this is a wonderful deconstruction of the traditional sexism that still prevails in South Africa. The narrator is a sensitive new-age kid, but he just can’t stand peer humiliation. “Public phone calls get more awkward, each and every day. And when I meet her dad, I’ll cry and ask, what kind of name is Peter for a girl, anyway?”

These lines would sound trite if it wasn’t for the manic delivery of singer Shane Durrant, who will remind you of a cross between the awkwardly painful style of The Modern Lovers’ Jonathan Richman and the gusto of The White Stripes’ Jack White.

The song’s lilting, happy kwela guitar plays off the drums’ ponderous beat of convention in the same way as the narrator struggles to reconcile the tug of alternative love with the weight of societal norms. At times the pain is expressed in a parody of adult platitudes, such as the words “popular classic” in the narrator’s cry to the father. “What’s the matter with Mary, or a popular classic like Claire? Why didn’t you give her a girl’s name? Is it ‘cos you didn’t care? And why didn’t you just go with Gwynneth, or something simple like Pat?”

Many of the Tutus’ songs are about adolescent travails. The wonderfully titled Soggy-bottomed Speedo Swimmer is the story of a kid who has to wear his dad’s old Speedo because he’s lost his stylish baggies and how he becomes a hero by winning a school swimming race because of his more aquadynamic shape. Many of the songs share the characteristic of crazed bafflement and, although they might be figured around problems of the young, each song speaks to the adult problem that is nascent in the child.

Like Pictures, a song about a girlfriend hanging up pictures. The song’s refrain, delivered in a plaintive scream, is a pop manifestation of Beckett’s Molloy, constantly counting the pebbles in his pockets. “Why are you putting them up if you’re just gonna take them down? Why are you putting them up if you’re just gonna take them down? You’re putting them up. You’re putting them up. Why are you putting them up if you’re just gonna take them down?”

And, crucially, Desmond and the Tutus are funny, damn funny. For those of you out there who can still remember bands such as The Kerels and The Radio Rats, you’ll know that laughing at the absurdity of life is one of the qualities that makes a great South African song. That, and not taking yourself too seriously.

Listen to Peter and suggest your own great South African song on mg.co.za/greatsasongs. Next week’s featured song is Thugs by The Dynamics

Peter

Well she had all the right looks, and all the right qualities, all the right smiles, in all the right quantities, all the right perfections, all the right places, all the right flaws, and all the right spaces. But a sport-crazed dad, in desperate need of a son, who only had 12 daughters, and she was the last one.

And Peter, I just can’t love you, the way that you need me to.
Peter, I can’t love you, the way that, the way that you need me to.

Named after granddad, no, she wasn’t shy no-how, introducing herself at the top of her lungs, she wasn’t shy, not now.
And public phone calls get more awkward, each and every day. And when I meet her dad, I’ll cry and ask, what kind of name is Peter for a girl, anyway?

Peter, I just can’t love you, the way that you need me to.
Peter, I can’t love you, the way that, the way that you need me to.

What’s the matter with Mary, or a popular classic like Claire? Why didn’t you give her a girl’s name? Is it ‘cos you didn’t care? And why didn’t you just go with Gwynneth, or something simple like Pat?

Peter, I love you, but I can’t get over the facts.
Peter, I just can’t love you, the way that you need me to.
Peter, I can’t love you, the way that, the way that you need me.
Peter, I can’t love you.
Peter, I can’t love you,
Peter, I can’t love you, the way that, the way that you need me to.