Talking point: A song is worth 1000 souvenirs

Whenever we go anywhere on holiday, we are bound to bring back a souvenir or two. Something useful, like clothing or handcraft. Or something spontaneous, like the straw donkey from Spain or the papyrus scroll from Egypt. But sometimes the most valuable souvenir is not something you can hold in your hand, but something you hold in your head: and that is the music on the radio. I realized this a week or so ago when I was driving back from Mozambique. Because the radio programming on a Sunday is so dire, I was plugged into my iPod. There I was, barreling down the N2 towards Durban, the windows open to the balmy breeze, yodeling away at the top of my voice to my favourite songs, a collection culled over many years. (Just in case you’re wondering, I was alone in the car). However, a couple of hits into the selection, I realized that almost every single song in my personal Hall of Fame was connected to a holiday. Every time I have taken a significant trip, there has been a song to accompany it. Just to get the record straight - we are not always talking about folk music or music even connected to the place I was visiting. Often we are talking about a current hit, a pop song playing on the radio, which would become the sound-track for that particular journey. For instance, on a trip to the Comores, Tracy Chapman’s Sub City was playing on the tape deck of an open jeep that took me on a wild ride down a narrow jungle road to my hotel. To this day I cannot hear this song without smelling the forest and feeling the hot wind in my face. When I was skiing in Austria, the hit of the day was by Inner Circle: a reggae-like ditty improbably called Sweat. Whenever I hear this song I am back there, dancing on the tables in my ski-boots and drinking vast quantities of pale beer. ‘Island in the Sun’ (a pop song, not the Harry Belafonte calypso) is indelibly linked with California’s Pacific Highway. The classical folk-tune ‘Ashokan Farewell’ immediately takes me back to the Yorkshire Dales. The list goes on. I didn’t choose these songs as my holiday anthems, I must stress, they just became associated with a certain time and place and therefore always will be. Holidays are a time when your senses are on full alert because you are surrounded by new things all the time (or at least, I sincerely hope you are. Otherwise, where on earth do you take your holidays?) So here’s a recommendation for all tour guides and tourism professionals: accompany your trips with some musical sound-track. (Just please, not Paris Hilton singing, the woman is everywhere as it is.) And be sensitive to your guests – not everyone loves heavy metal. South African favourites, of course, are Johnny Clegg, Soweto String Quartet, Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Imagine taking around a township tour with Brenda Fassie on the stereo and then offering the CD for sale to your guests. For game lodges, who feature local people singing round the campfire, it is a simple matter to record the songs onto a CD and give them to your guests as a little private souvenir of their stay. Just as you select a wine to go with a particular course at a meal, select a particular music to go with the trip. Robin Auld is the ultimate surfer dude and will accompany a trip along the South Coast more than adequately. For something with a little more body, and I use the term advisedly, what about Sibongile Khumalo singing jazz? Just Jinger and Watershed? Backpackers will love Mandoza. Long trips through the Karoo will require something with stamina, so I would recommend a smorgasbord of Afrikaans artists like Johannes Kerkorrel, Laurika Rauch, Coleske and perhaps Coenie de Villiers. If you have visitors who like to skate on the edge a little bit, there is David Kramer, Phusikemisi, Abdullah Ibrahim, Rebecca Malope – ooh, hang on, I’m getting excited now. Just think of all the wonderful music we have right here that we can use to give visitors the sounds of South Africa. Excuse me a minute: I’m going off to do some research. I’ve just trawled