Page 39 - 2020 SoM Journal Vol 73 No 1 FINAL_Neat

A Continuing Legacy of Song 31

Let us respect them
In just a few years
Many young men
Have lost their life
Our children, soldiers eh
Let us ask our creator
To protect our soldiers
From the shadow of death
Our soldiers
Together with your families
Know that we love you very much
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Coming from another soja, these words offer a centennial capstone to a central
part of the asilikali lyrical tradition.
Of course, the mere presence of lyrical lamentations such as these is not
the only characteristic of the asilikali tradition present in Malawian music. Other
recurring themes reflect this presence as well. One familiar trope which has
transferred from asilikali lyrics into popular culture, not surprisingly, is that of the
indefatigable lion. Known in a variety of traditional contexts, the lion took on a
particular military symbolism with the Kiswahili lyrics of the King’s African
Rifles marching song, Haya Keya Askari [We Are Soldiers], originally composed
rd
for the 3 (Ugandan) regiment by their bandmaster C. A. Harvey during World
War One, and usually sung without change by all the battalions of the regiment,
including those from Malawi:

Haya! KAR askari!
Our duty is the journey!
What is your job?
Heavy fighting today!
Orders of the government!
The KAR’s ready!
As fierce as lions,
All of us are brave!
Come let’s go and fight,
Fight the enemy, fight him hard!
Haya! KAR askari!
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37 Lucius Banda, “Moyo wa Msilikali,” https://www.malawi-music.com/L/35-
lucius-banda/6016-moyo-wa-msilikali/11062-moyo-wa-msilikali, accessed 7
August 2019; translation kindly provided by Dr Yusuf M. Juwayeyi.
38 Clayton, Communication for New Loyalties, 48; Shepperson, “’They Went
Singing,’” 258; Moyse-Bartlett, “Bands,” 695. This was certainly an early
example of “a unified ‘marching music’ for the King’s Africans Rifles”; Lwanda