Andries Bezuidenhout - Ode to the Civil Service (Official Music Video)

A track from South African musician, poet and painter Andries Bezuidenhout’s album “No place for time here” (Dikeni Records, 2024). This one’s about South Africa’s administrative capital city Pretoria, where Bezuidenhout grew up. The track was originally released in Afrikaans in 2003. The video combines original footage and historical photographs of Pretoria that were made to come to life by means of AI.
Recorded and mixed by Andries Bezuidenhout
Mastered by Willem Möller
LYRICS: ODE TO THE CIVIL SERVICE
Summer in Pretoria, the sun shines bright
Iscor sparks a furnace in the skies
Summer in Pretoria, the sun shines too bright
On the lenses that cover my eyes
Staring at the world through a pair shades
All I can do to protect
To censor and deflect reality
These images too bright for me
These images too bright for me
These images too bright for me
Civil service buildings like filing cabinets
Waiting for decrees, decisions, and verdicts
I'm in my Beatle, waiting for the light
That orders me back to my daily plight
Observing these fumes through a pair of shades
All I can do in this traffic
To censor and deflect reality
These headlights too bright for me
These headlights too bright for me
These headlights too bright for me
I see books and chairs and pens and my boss
Scowling and waiting for a moment to pounce
Waiting for tea time and for tjaila time
All I can do but meanwhile
I look at the world through a camera lense
With a focus on the present tense
I focus in shades of black and white
Because reality is way too bright
Reality is way too bright
Reality is way too bright
Staring at the world through a pair shades
All I can do to protect
To censor and deflect reality
These images too bright for me
These images too bright for me
These images too bright for me
© Andries Bezuidenhout