Well, if 
you thought you were going to get a clear explication about this song, you’re going to have to just accept the fact that we live in an imperfect world. The lyrics of Toto’s “Africa” have a number of explanations that have been given by members of the band, notably by David Paich, a band keyboardist and vocalist.I thought that “Toto” was the name of the composer/singer of the song, one of those people in the music biz with a one-word name, but it’s the name of a band formed in 1976 that had its greatest hits in the 1980’s and 1990’s; “Africa” was released in 1982. Where did the name come from? It’s hard to say. One story says that the band was making demo tapes and wrote “toto” on them; they didn’t have a name picked out yet. Then they said that the band was named after the dog in The Wizard of Oz, although that statement seems to have been just a publicity stunt. Finally, one band member pointed out that “toto” means “all encompassing” in Latin, and since they had done backup for so many other bands in so many other genres, they decided to stick with it.
Now for the lyrics. They are the product of David Paich and Jeff Porcaro, a drummer. Explanations came well after the release of the song; the earliest quotation I found was from 1995, 13 years later. In it, Paich says that the song was inspired by his seeing a TV documentary about the “terrible death and suffering” in Africa and that the imagery stuck with him. Later he said, “There was a little bit of autobiographical information in there: being consumed by my work, not having time to go out and pursue getting married and raising a family and doing all the things that other people do that were my age at the time.” So those statements would tend to support the idea that “This song tells the story of a man who comes to Africa and must make a decision about the girl who comes to see him. He is enamored with the country, but must leave it if he is going to be with her.” (from Songfacts, kindly supplied by a member of the Chorale.) Porcaro backs this idea up, saying: “a white boy is trying to write a song on Africa, but since he’s never been there, he can only tell what he’s seen on TV or remembers in the past.”
So that seems pretty straightforward, no? Well, apparently Mr. Paich wasn’t satisfied with his explanation, or did some revisionist thinking, or something:
In 2015, Paich explained the song is about a man’s love of a continent, Africa, rather than just a personal romance. In 2018, Paich explained the song is about a person flying in to meet a lonely missionary. As a child, Paich attended a Catholic school. Several of the teachers had done missionary work in Africa, and this became the inspiration behind the line “I bless the rains down in Africa.” (Wikipedia)
So who knows? As I read about this very famous song with its very confusing lyrics, I was reminded of the song we performed several years ago, “Orinoco Flow/Sail Away,” another monster hit that makes no sense. I said in the post I wrote about that piece that “In the end, the real meaning of the song, whatever that may be, is probably not recoverable.” Maybe that’s the formula for success in the pop music world—don’t overthink things and just go with the flow. (No pun intended.) For both of these songs, the original groups were astonished at their success. Indeed, some members of Toto are a little chagrined that they’re so famous for this one song when they’ve done so much other work. However, they admit that the song has certainly been very good to them. The royalties keep rolling in, and they’re not complaining about that.
When my choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale, performed a choral arrangement at a concert, we used a version that included sound effects from using our hands to recreate a rainstorm. Apparently this idea originated with the Angel City Chorale of Los Angeles–here’s their performance:
And if you thought the song was confusing, wait ‘till you see the music video! Also, note how many views this has had:
And then, just because it’s so, so cool, here’s a performance which incorporates “Africa” into “The Twelve Days of Christmas” (which also has a not–too-shabby number of views):
