Misheard lyric coverup conspiracy

[infection]

So in Toto’s “Africa,” there’s a misheard lyric of “I miss the rains down in Africa,” which is the way I had heard it for all of my early life, as did many others. A little over a decade ago, I discovered that the actual lyric is “I bless the rains down in Africa.” Fair enough.

The other part is the lyric “sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.” Now, most of my life I had heard this lyric as “sure as Kilimanjaro rises like a leopress above the Serengeti.” This is also a commonly misheard lyric (if you’re inclined to believe it’s misheard) because leopress is not a word, but instead a female leopard is a leopardess.

I came across this link today talking about songs that get facts incorrect that mentioned the connection, or lack thereof, between Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti.



I believe this is all ********. I believe they originally wrote and sang the lyric as “leopress,” only to later realize or find out that leopress isn’t even a word. It’s convenient that Olympus and Kilimanjaro share imagery as mountains, but I believe this is being retrofitted into the lyrics as if it were how it were sung initially. I’m not buying it. They don’t want to admit that, like the rest of us, we assumed leopress was a word (and we all assumed it was a word because we thought they said it).

Give it a listen at 1:57. There’s definitely an “R” in that lyric. At its very best, you could say that phonetically it was “olemprus,” which begs the question of WTF someone would say it like that.


View: https://youtu.be/FTQbiNvZqaY?t=117


It’s leopress. Olympus is ********.

 

[JazzGal]

Okay...

 

[infection]

Okay...

 

[LogGrad98]

So in Toto’s “Africa,” there’s a misheard lyric of “I miss the rains down in Africa,” which is the way I had heard it for all of my early life, as did many others. A little over a decade ago, I discovered that the actual lyric is “I bless the rains down in Africa.” Fair enough.

The other part is the lyric “sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.” Now, most of my life I had heard this lyric as “sure as Kilimanjaro rises like a leopress above the Serengeti.” This is also a commonly misheard lyric (if you’re inclined to believe it’s misheard) because leopress is not a word, but instead a female leopard is a leopardess.

I came across this link today talking about songs that get facts incorrect that mentioned the connection, or lack thereof, between Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti.

View attachment 14965

I believe this is all ********. I believe they originally wrote and sang the lyric as “leopress,” only to later realize or find out that leopress isn’t even a word. It’s convenient that Olympus and Kilimanjaro share imagery as mountains, but I believe this is being retrofitted into the lyrics as if it were how it were sung initially. I’m not buying it. They don’t want to admit that, like the rest of us, we assumed leopress was a word (and we all assumed it was a word because we thought they said it).

Give it a listen at 1:57. There’s definitely an “R” in that lyric. At its very best, you could say that phonetically it was “olemprus,” which begs the question of WTF someone would say it like that.


View: https://youtu.be/FTQbiNvZqaY?t=117


It’s leopress. Olympus is ********.

 

[str8line]

My old-*** ears heard Olympus.

Great song. I'll never forget when someone on the bus from Johannesburg to Kruger played it and we all sang at the top of our lungs. I sang especially loud and with clarity on that Olympus part.

 

[gandalfe]

So in Toto’s “Africa,” there’s a misheard lyric of “I miss the rains down in Africa,” which is the way I had heard it for all of my early life, as did many others. A little over a decade ago, I discovered that the actual lyric is “I bless the rains down in Africa.” Fair enough.

The other part is the lyric “sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.” Now, most of my life I had heard this lyric as “sure as Kilimanjaro rises like a leopress above the Serengeti.” This is also a commonly misheard lyric (if you’re inclined to believe it’s misheard) because leopress is not a word, but instead a female leopard is a leopardess.

I came across this link today talking about songs that get facts incorrect that mentioned the connection, or lack thereof, between Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti.

View attachment 14965

I believe this is all ********. I believe they originally wrote and sang the lyric as “leopress,” only to later realize or find out that leopress isn’t even a word. It’s convenient that Olympus and Kilimanjaro share imagery as mountains, but I believe this is being retrofitted into the lyrics as if it were how it were sung initially. I’m not buying it. They don’t want to admit that, like the rest of us, we assumed leopress was a word (and we all assumed it was a word because we thought they said it).

Give it a listen at 1:57. There’s definitely an “R” in that lyric. At its very best, you could say that phonetically it was “olemprus,” which begs the question of WTF someone would say it like that.


View: https://youtu.be/FTQbiNvZqaY?t=117


It’s leopress. Olympus is ********.

Why would a leopress, even if it were a word, be depicted as rising above the Serengeti? That makes no logical or rhetorical sense, at least with Olympus, you have the link of them both being mountains, and Olympus is more familiar to the Western listener. That's a reasonable link, not any kind of leopard.

Listen to the song while reading the word Olympus and that's what you'll hear.

 

[infection]

Why would a leopress, even if it were a word, be depicted as rising above the Serengeti? That makes no logical or rhetorical sense, at least with Olympus, you have the link of them both being mountains, and Olympus is more familiar to the Western listener. That's a reasonable link, not any kind of leopard.

Listen to the song while reading the word Olympus and that's what you'll hear.

The image of a leopard poking its head above the grass. And Kilimanjaro not being in the Serengeti, not that they’d necessarily know that. I’ve tried to read it while listening. There’s an R in there, though. If he’s truly saying Olympus, he’s saying like a huge moron.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

It’s “hiss” the rains and “empress” not leopress. Get it right!

On a side note, it’s “henroo busted”, not tin roof rusted. 100% sure.

 

[infection]

I'll elaborate more on this within the context of the lyrical patter of the song. First, the rhyming patterns are fairly unique. They'll often have two sentences of lyrics where the words that will rhyme won't necessarily be the concluding word of the sentence, but the pattern of when the rhyme picks up will be staggered. For instance:

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in, 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation

Overall, there are 7 rhyming pairs in this song, subtracting out repeats in the chorus. 6 of the (agreed upon) lyrics are perfect rhymes.

Exploring The Different Types Of Rhyme

From early childhood, we're inundated with different types of rhyme. But they're not all the same, and artists use them in varied ways.

www.babbel.com

Perfect Rhyme​

The gold standard of rhyming is the perfect rhyme, also called an exact rhyme, a true rhyme or a full rhyme. A perfect rhyme is usually two non-identical words that are the same length and…well…rhyme (have the same vowel and ending consonant sound). Cat and hat, dock and rock, and so on. It doesn’t have to be single words, also. “Ratchet” and “catch it” can be considered a perfect rhyme. There are an extraordinary number of examples to choose from for this type of rhyme, so let’s go with one you’ve probably heard of before.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

So if we are to look at the 7th rhyme in context, we have:

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like [Olympus / a leopress] above the Serengeti

This is the context which the rhyme would take place. If the intended word were "Olympus," then Olympus and restless would be considered a slant rhyme:

Slant Rhyme​

When a rhyme isn’t quite perfect, it’s a slant rhyme, a near rhyme, an imperfect rhyme, an approximate rhyme or, for the ruder sort, a lazy rhyme. These are rhymes that don’t match perfectly, but share enough vowels and consonants to resemble each other. Slant rhymes allow a writer to have a much larger number of words to choose from. While they’re called “lazy,” many — if not all — rhymers resort to them once in a while. They can even be necessary. The word “orange,” which famously doesn’t have a perfect rhyme, can only be used with slant rhymes. Despite that, rapper Eminem has used “orange” many times, like in “Brainless.”

Take some inventory,
In this gourde,
There’s a Ford engine,
Door hinge,
Syringe,
An orange,
An extension cord
And a Ninja sword.

This would mean that the word in question would be the exception of the rhymes in this song, where 6/7 other rhymes are all perfect rhymes and the one in question is a slant rhyme. Restless and leopress would be a perfect rhyme. It could absolutely be coincidental that the 1/7 is just a lyrical anomaly, but you'd have to acknowledge it as being a bit more of an outlier than acknowledging that the misheard lyric would blend in perfectly with all rhyming patters of the song.

My final piece of evidence is the way this has been sung historically live. Here's a performance from 1982 (when the song was released) where it's sung exactly as it appears on the album, with the appearance of an "R" sound in the supposed "Olympus" [or "Olymprus"] here at 2:08:


View: https://youtu.be/CgUhp0vyz-Q?t=128


Yet later performances very clearly enunciating "Olympus," such as this one nearly 10 years later:


View: https://youtu.be/fw4ZunPirsY?t=154


It's a cover-up. You're being gaslit to believe he originally said Olympus.

 

[LogGrad98]

I'll elaborate more on this within the context of the lyrical patter of the song. First, the rhyming patterns are fairly unique. They'll often have two sentences of lyrics where the words that will rhyme won't necessarily be the concluding word of the sentence, but the pattern of when the rhyme picks up will be staggered. For instance:

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in, 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation

Overall, there are 7 rhyming pairs in this song, subtracting out repeats in the chorus. 6 of the (agreed upon) lyrics are perfect rhymes.

Exploring The Different Types Of Rhyme

From early childhood, we're inundated with different types of rhyme. But they're not all the same, and artists use them in varied ways.

www.babbel.com

So if we are to look at the 7th rhyme in context, we have:

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like [Olympus / a leopress] above the Serengeti

This is the context which the rhyme would take place. If the intended word were "Olympus," then Olympus and restless would be considered a slant rhyme:



This would mean that the word in question would be the exception of the rhymes in this song, where 6/7 other rhymes are all perfect rhymes and the one in question is a slant rhyme. Restless and leopress would be a perfect rhyme. It could absolutely be coincidental that the 1/7 is just a lyrical anomaly, but you'd have to acknowledge it as being a bit more of an outlier than acknowledging that the misheard lyric would blend in perfectly with all rhyming patters of the song.

My final piece of evidence is the way this has been sung historically live. Here's a performance from 1982 (when the song was released) where it's sung exactly as it appears on the album, with the appearance of an "R" sound in the supposed "Olympus" [or "Olymprus"] here at 2:08:


View: https://youtu.be/CgUhp0vyz-Q?t=128


Yet later performances very clearly enunciating "Olympus," such as this one nearly 10 years later:


View: https://youtu.be/fw4ZunPirsY?t=154


It's a cover-up. You're being gaslit to believe he originally said Olympus.

It's clearly the Mandela effect.

 

[infection]

It's clearly the Mandela effect.

It would be the Mandela effect of there were no evidence present. Maybe you could say it’s the Mandela effect that people thought it was Olympus, but that would require them to acknowledge that it’s really leopress.

 

[gandalfe]

I'll elaborate more on this within the context of the lyrical patter of the song. First, the rhyming patterns are fairly unique. They'll often have two sentences of lyrics where the words that will rhyme won't necessarily be the concluding word of the sentence, but the pattern of when the rhyme picks up will be staggered. For instance:

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in, 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation

Overall, there are 7 rhyming pairs in this song, subtracting out repeats in the chorus. 6 of the (agreed upon) lyrics are perfect rhymes.

Exploring The Different Types Of Rhyme

From early childhood, we're inundated with different types of rhyme. But they're not all the same, and artists use them in varied ways.

www.babbel.com

So if we are to look at the 7th rhyme in context, we have:

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like [Olympus / a leopress] above the Serengeti

This is the context which the rhyme would take place. If the intended word were "Olympus," then Olympus and restless would be considered a slant rhyme:



This would mean that the word in question would be the exception of the rhymes in this song, where 6/7 other rhymes are all perfect rhymes and the one in question is a slant rhyme. Restless and leopress would be a perfect rhyme. It could absolutely be coincidental that the 1/7 is just a lyrical anomaly, but you'd have to acknowledge it as being a bit more of an outlier than acknowledging that the misheard lyric would blend in perfectly with all rhyming patters of the song.

My final piece of evidence is the way this has been sung historically live. Here's a performance from 1982 (when the song was released) where it's sung exactly as it appears on the album, with the appearance of an "R" sound in the supposed "Olympus" [or "Olymprus"] here at 2:08:


View: https://youtu.be/CgUhp0vyz-Q?t=128


Yet later performances very clearly enunciating "Olympus," such as this one nearly 10 years later:


View: https://youtu.be/fw4ZunPirsY?t=154


It's a cover-up. You're being gaslit to believe he originally said Olympus.

The 1st example you give doesn't show a mid-line rhyme. The corresponding rhyme in the 2nd example would be company/Serengeti, which is definitely not perfect either, but it disproves your whole "they're all perfect" narrative.

Here's the other question: What would be the point? Like, they have fully admitted they didn't know what they were talking about already with the Serengeti thing, so why deny it for this? What is the payoff?

 

[infection]

The 1st example you give doesn't show a mid-line rhyme. The corresponding rhyme in the 2nd example would be company/Serengeti, which is definitely not perfect either, but it disproves your whole "they're all perfect" narrative.

Here's the other question: What would be the point? Like, they have fully admitted they didn't know what they were talking about already with the Serengeti thing, so why deny it for this? What is the payoff?

I couldn’t answer that question. It’s impossible for me to squeeze Olympus on top of it with a fully enunciated R and appealing to “why would they do that?” doesn’t quite resolve what I’m hearing. I was willing to go along with that at first and for a number of years, but I’m now unwilling to collude.

 

[LogGrad98]

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like [Olympus / a leopress] above the Serengeti

I think this is rhyming Company and Serengeti, the other rhyme is merely coincidental.

 

[infection]

Here’s the last I’ll say… go watch the official video on YouTube. It’s at 1:57. Slow the playback speed to 0.25x and tell me honestly if you hear Olympus.

 

[gandalfe]

Here’s the last I’ll say… go watch the official video on YouTube. It’s at 1:57. Slow the playback speed to 0.25x and tell me honestly if you hear Olympus.

Slowing it down like that is not really a good check, it's like zooming in on a picture until all you see is pixels. But when I do, what I hear is Oooooooooollllllyyyyyyyyymmmmmmmmmmpppppppusssssssssssss with a bunch of crackling and audio artifacts inside it that sound like demons trying to get out.

There's also the theory that it's about a werewolf looking for a cure. I think that one's way more interesting.

 

[LogGrad98]

Here’s the last I’ll say… go watch the official video on YouTube. It’s at 1:57. Slow the playback speed to 0.25x and tell me honestly if you hear Olympus.

I did that with my headphones on. I tried 2 different versions of the video. I legitimately hear Olympus. One thing I did notice is there is an instrumental effect right during the word Olympus, whether a tom or something, that distorts the word a tiny bit. Maybe that is what you are hearing. Not sure.

 

[LogGrad98]

Let's see if this works for a clip of that moment. What does everyone else hear.

âï¸ Olympus

8 seconds · Clipped by LogGrad98 · Original video "Toto - Africa (Official HD Video)" by TotoVEVO

youtube.com

Here it is at half speed.

edit: never mind it won't keep the speed setting but everyone can change it themselves in the video at the gear icon

 

[infection]

I have found the acapella version and concede it’s Olympus.


View: https://youtu.be/jF37bHRDXjE

 

[LogGrad98]

Here it is in a live version.

âï¸ Olympus Live

11 seconds · Clipped by LogGrad98 · Original video "Toto - Africa (Live)" by TotoVEVO

youtube.com

I will say this, their live version is really good. So often you get live versions where they are just riffing or can't sing it properly, or whatever, but they pretty much nail it live. Especially the vocals.