Tina Singu

DESCRIPTION: "Tina singu leluva taeo, O watsha watsha watsha" (repeat). Or "Tina, singu, leluvutaeo, Watcha, watcha, watcha." Rest of song may be filled out with "la la la la....." Supposedly translates as "We are filled with the fire of life."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1957 (ChansonsDeNotreChalet)
KEYWORDS: foreignlanguage campsong
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 148, 314, "Tinga Singu" (notes only)
ChansonsDeNotreChalet, p. 39, "Tina Singu" (1 text, 1 tune)
SongsOfManyNations, "Tina Singu" (1 text, 1 tune) (12th edition, p. 19)
33MuchLovedSongs, p. 12, "Tina Singu" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES [132 words]: Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs insists on calling this "Tinga Singu," and given that it's nonsense to an English speaker anyway, I can't say she's "wrong," but every other source seems to call it "Tina Singu," or just "Tina." Given that it was recorded by The Weavers and by Pete Seeger, that's about as standardized as a title can get. What's more, ChansonsDeNotreChalet reports that "Tina" is the word for "we" (presumably in Sotho, the Southern Bantu language of what is now Lesotho, but ChansonsDeNotreChalet doesn't specify that).
Joe Hickerson apparently reported that it comes from Basutoland; this is also the attribution in ChansonsDeNotreChalet and 33MuchLovedSongs. Unlike most non-English folk songs used in camps, this one seems to have kept more or less its original pronunciation. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.3
File: ACSF148T

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