You say “Come back”? You must come back!!

Spurn advice and you'll come a cropper.

Always remember where you came from:

seek the seers to tell you straight.

Africa stayed! She's nowhere else!!

Look how the grass continues to sprout.

Look at the springs still bubbling with water.

Look all around, it's all in its place!

You say “Come back”? You must come back!!

You're profit to all the earth's nations:

they come from the north, they come from the south,

out of the east and out of the west.

Where are your daughters? What do you say?

“We roam the countryside, shacked up with gangsters,

we're up to the ears in the white man's booze.”

But the white doesn't drink a drop of yours.

You raise your cry, saying “Come back”?

You must come back and return to battle.

Deny yourself like the ancient sage,

fast and subsist on water.

Where are your daughters, the nation's flower?

“We're cutting capers in New Clare,

up to the gills in skokiaan,

bleery-eyed from ‘Kill-me-quick’.”

The heavens, I see, are shocked

by all these goings-on.

“When our parents come to visit

we blabber as if we don't know them.”

We throw up our hands at our daughters and sons,

water spilt on sand:

“We go round sleeping where fancy takes us

at fling after fling in house after house.”

Our gods also thought we'd converted,

become moral church congregations.

Inside we sing, “ Lord, we've gathered,”

“Get him!” we snarl outside. We're crumbling.

To conclude, my people, I'll say this:

unless we completely turn our backs

on these habits that I've mentioned,

Africa will never come back.