23 “The Pebble Is Breaking Me”

Demonstrating the intersection of loss and spirituality, Majwala’s account describes death as an extension of life rather than a separate realm. This intimacy with death is what allows the song’s performer to embody it so well, as we see how the singer uses his oratorical skill to vividly describe the sensation of being buried and entering the world of the dead. Such oration impacts the way we listen to and comprehend the song: instead of being a mere description of events, it creatively encompasses the spiritual and psychological aspects that constitute mortality.

At the start of Majwala’s performance of “The Pebble Is Breaking Me,” he plays a brief excerpt that features a gentle plucking of the bow harp (ennanga). The tempo of the buzzing instrumental part begins to pick up, quickly falling into a tight, consistent rhythm. Like bow harp songs presented in previous chapters, this part features two interlocking melodies that support the vocal lines when played together. When Majwala’s vocals enter, they grow louder and more passionate. His words express the regret and lament of a dead person, who pities the living who fail to appreciate the beauty and wonder of their existence. Majwala brings out these emotions in his performance by repeating and accentuating specific bow harp notes in a way that renders the song mellow and sorrowful.

“The Pebble Is Breaking Me” is slower than the tempos of other bow harp songs, and Majwala’s performance successfully evokes a dejection and introspection that we might not associate with more energetic or cheerful songs. Many of his phrases end with loud inflections, where his voice rises significantly to cry out, almost as though he is in pain or is dying. Other times he employs a loud sustain at the end of the vocable waalaalaa or its variation waalaalaala, wordless for the sake of emotional expression and often used to express alarm. These vocalizations lend passion to the lyrics that emphasize the text’s meaning. It is as if they are calling out to the living, to deliver deep reflections from beyond the grave, reminding those alive to be grateful for their opportunity. While Majwala sometimes sounds as though he is crying out, at other times he rapidly vocalizes sequences of syllables. In the middle of his performance, he chooses to hum a continuous stream of notes in unison with the instrumental melody. He then repeats several lyrics in a row. Toward the end of the performance, the bow harp drops out as his voice carries on, only rejoining after a few seconds of the solo vocal performance. The two eventually fade out: the vocals lessen in intensity, and the bow harp flows into silence. Overall, Majwala’s performance of “The Pebble Is Breaking Me” expresses death and decay in its stylistic elements, evoking other possible experiences of deterioration, such as that of a friendship, an edifice, or Buganda’s cultural and musical institutions.

These lyrics imagine personal annihilation not just as an incipient moment but as a phase taking place in a vaster environment of life and death. Multigenerational references highlight the universality of death. In Buganda, the world of the living and that of the dead are interconnected. Accordingly, referencing stones or rocks is common in Kiganda songs about death because they allude to the traditional burial practices of the Baganda, who wrap their dead in bark cloth before covering the grave with stones. References to “the pebble” (lines 1–3, 10–14, and 24–25) and “stones” (lines 19–20 and 64–66) in Majwala’s lyrics serve as a metonym where pebbles and stones represent the burial mounds that they make up and the bodies that they conceal. “The pebble is breaking me” (lines 1–2, and 10) means “death is weighing on me,” “mother’s pebble” (lines 3 and 11) implies “mother’s death,” and references to cleaning and adorning the house (lines 15–16 and 60–61) refer to obsession with material possessions that one leaves behind after death. Those listening to “The Pebble Is Breaking Me” might also associate breaking pebbles with fracturing kinship and company. Throughout the song, the singer addresses someone using the title baaba (lines 4–7, 15, 19–20, 29, 32–33, 36, 56, 64, and 66), which means “older sibling” but could also suggest “dear.” He also uses the expression baana battu (lines 2, 11, and 57), which translates as “dear children.” Moreover, he consistently uses words that simultaneously evoke consanguineous and filial kin. “Sir” could also mean “father,” “madam” could also mean “mother,” and “dear” could also mean “child.” At the same time, the singer describes the loneliness associated with death, saying that he will go just alone (lines 4 and 9) into the grave. Thus, he highlights the importance of both biological and social kin in one’s contemplation of life and its end. On the one hand, the singer’s speech might allude to his desperation to maintain bonds, as he begins to refer to the listener using intimate language. On the other hand, his words may refer to the role that family and friends play in a person’s funeral rites, as they see their deceased off.

The phrase “the grave does not get filled up” (lines 6–7 and 28–29) imagines death as a spatial landscape that far exceeds the amount of people that have ever died. This is also to say that the vast expanse of death is unavoidable, as it remains inherently open to newly freed spirits. This idea places the ordinary pursuits of living beings in a greater context, for whatever life one builds for oneself will cease someday. The lyrics compare humanity’s efforts to ekitembe (lines 17 and 62), a wild plant that seems to grow bananas but whose fruit is inedible. Commonly found in forests, it looks similar to—and is sometimes mistaken for—the staple banana plant called ekitooke, which produces edible bananas generically called amatooke. Ekitembe comes across as attractive and perhaps nutritious at first sight, but it is not edible. The singer compares it to a person who fattens “for no reason” or grows to die (lines 17 and 62). These points divert away from human concerns like achieving material wealth or attaining honorable behavior, instead recognizing that death is final. The points are not nihilistic; instead, they reflect a way of embracing life unattached to material obsession. The singer develops this commentary even further when he evokes the death of a professor (lines 48–49), suggesting that knowledge, too, dissipates in death. In this sense, knowledge is as contingent as material wealth, only predicated on the idiosyncrasies of the age. Despite the professor’s beliefs, truth cannot exist in and of itself. It is a human conception, and so it requires a human being to believe in it. It falls apart just as quickly as the professor’s body, falling into the great existential fog.

At this point the song transitions to discuss regimes (lines 32–37), applying the inevitability of death to the end of government administrations. It abstracts death, positing it as just a moment along a greater existential scheme of change, accomplishing this when the singer simultaneously embraces the interdependent forces of creation and cessation. By asking “who” will come and defy this law of existence (lines 38–42, 52–53, and 67–68), the singer demonstrates imminence—the feeling that something is about to occur. In this sense, life is always in a process of becoming. From the perspective of social institutions, the process of becoming and change is lying in wait for the next great leader or regime that will seek to defy death. “The Pebble Is Breaking Me” does not reject these pursuits entirely, but it does recognize that the failure of such attempts is inevitable.

At last Majwala faces his own mortality, recognizing that his own investment in its conundrum is futile and subject to the fickle whims of existence (lines 56–57). At the same time, he affirms and accepts his existence in its utter vulnerability.

Emphasizing the fleeting nature of life, Majwala’s lyrics generally suggest that one must reevaluate values that prioritize material success and wealth over personal relationships. Because life is fleeting, accrual of material value is futile in comparison to the fruitful, lively connections people make with others. He mentions different family members to demonstrate how mortality affects these kin networks. For example, when one person dies, his or her death ripples outward through a fabric of loved ones. This is partly why the singer encourages the living to appreciate their fleeting surroundings. Seen through this lens, we might instead approach death with a faith that things will all work out in the end.

The ideas and emotions expressed in “The Pebble Is Breaking Me” also apply to political leadership. Again, Majwala reminds us that all dynasties will become dust eventually and that these ends are not necessarily tragedies, for the end of one political regime will allow the fruit of another’s to bloom. The song thus suggests that politics can follow a cycle of rebirth and revitalization. As we have seen, the singer himself illustrates how political administrations follow one other, constantly dying and being reborn simultaneously. Furthermore, the song draws parallels between the temporality and flexibility of lived experience and that of political power and control. In this sense any regime that resists the fact of its eventual death might face a meaner death than it would prefer to have.