DAILY MAVERICK featuring ANNELI KAMFER

Introducing 20Twenties: Eve of Destruction – Daily Maverick featuring Anneli Kamfer

by Branko Brkic

Mere Immortals: PF Sloan, Barry McGuire and their epoch-defining Eve of Destruction

by Branko Brkic

20Twenties: Eve of Destruction — how it came into being

by Tiara Walters & Branko Brkic

Anneli Kamfer – voice of an angel sings Eve of Destruction in a time of turmoil

by Karabo Mafolo

From conception to the final piece: The making of ‘Eve of Destruction’

by Bernard Kotze

The burning world, it is explodin’, 

Violence flarin’, fear & loathin’, 

You’re bad enough to scream, but your throat is chokin’, 

You don’t believe in oil, but it’s your car that’s smokin’, 

And even the Jordan river has no water floatin’, 

But you tell me over and over and over again my friend, 

Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction. 

Don’t you understand, what I’m trying to say? 

And can’t you feel the fears I’m feeling today?

When the threshold is crossed, it’s the end of the game, 

There’ll be nothing to save when the world is aflame, 

Take a look around you, girl, it’s bound to scare you, boy, 

And tell me over and over and over again my friend, 

Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction. 

Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’, 

I’m sittin’ here, just contemplatin’, 

I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation, 

Handful of senators don’t pass legislation,

And marches alone don’t bring the solution, 

When the human race is so close to dissolution’, 

This whole crazy world is one big confusion, 

And you tell me over and over and over again my friend, 

Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction. 

Think of all the coal that’s blazing your soul 

Then look at your own town spinning down the hole 

Ah, you may leave Earth, for four days in space, 

But when you return, the same old scorching place, 

The poundin’ of the drums, the fright and disgrace, 

You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace, 

Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say your grace 

And you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend, 

You don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction. 

No, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10546701/embed?auto=1

Interactive content by Flourish

Concept and updated lyrics by Branko Brkic & Tiara Walters 

Video by Bernard Kotze

Song produced by Theo Crous & Bernard Kotze

Mastered by Reuben Cohen

Vocals – Anneli Kamfer 

Guitars – Albert Frost 

Harmonica – Dave Ferguson

Bass – Schalk Joubert

Drums – Kevin Gibson

Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet – high-end journalism to address humanity’s greatest challenge

With Cape Town’s Day Zero as its wake-up call, Daily Maverick established Our Burning Planet. In the three years since then, the specialist climate crisis reporting unit has drawn attention to the head-on collision between bad governance and climate change, showing how the country is being reshaped by this phenomenon.

Daily Maverick is one of the largest independent news media in South Africa and one of the most respected in the media landscape. Founded in 2009 as a start-up of five people, it has grown into an organisation with more than 120 staff at a time when the number of journalists in the country has shrunk by half.

Its vision to “defend truth” makes it beloved by its readers and revered, and perhaps feared, by politicians and the people in power who it covers.

Daily Maverick is a mission-driven organisation that is intent on ensuring its readers “know more” and “know better”.

Three years ago, Daily Maverick began running a series called “Our Burning Planet”.

Born out of the warning that was the once-in-628-years drought that threatened Cape Town’s water supply, the series was our wake-up call that, as media, it was irresponsible to report on human-generated global warming with circumspection. We had to admit: we are heating up the planet — and it was time to do something about it.

And so a commitment was made that we will “concentrate on the head-on collision between bad governance and climate change”, and show how the country is being reshaped by this phenomenon.

Daily Maverick embarked on a process to build what is now considered the biggest climate crisis reporting unit in a mainstream media organisation in South Africa, potentially in southern Africa.

Our Burning Planet is not an activist effort, but rather an example of high-end journalism addressing humanity’s greatest challenge and bringing about social impact off the back of editorial focus on key areas of concern.

Its vision is for more members of the public, civil society, business leadership and government to better understand the impact and urgency of responding to the climate crisis.

Music journalism in the form of Eve of Destruction is its latest effort to achieve that. OBP/DM