Baba Yetu

I love unexpected surprises; A smile from a random stranger, two greetings from far-away Bloggers, and a great opening song from Civilization 4. I am a simple person with few needs; these little things are all that takes to make me happy.

Great music from PC games is more rare than an honest politician. It is simply not worth the effort. The intended gamer audience usually doesn't care much for the subtlety good music provides. Besides, most of the music gets lost in the sound of explosives, special moves, and sound affects. It is very unlikely people buy a PC game for the music; therefore it is usually not cost effective to provide good music with games.

That is why the opening song of Civilization 4 totally blew me away. It is like seeing a girl smile for the first time. Before her smile you have no ideal how pretty she can be. That is what the music did for Civilization 4, it made a pretty game into a beautiful game all by itself.

The opening song is composed by Christopher Tin and based on Swahili. Yes, Swahili language of the Eastern Africa origin, a place more commonly known as "The Cradle of Life". It is appropriate as the opening for Civilization - a game that spans from the dawn of civilization to modern day, a game that is about human history and interaction.

The song is a chorus, an informal opera that is as good as Fortuna. Even though the language is based on Swahili, not all the singers are native swahili speakers. The diversity of the voice strangely added unity to the wonderful song.

The song reminisce the opening theme song of Battlestar Galatica 2004 mini-series "Are You Alive?". They both have a surreal quality, both open with a gentle female vocal that awakens primal emotions, and they are both produced with another language. Yup, even though Battlestar Galatica's theme song sounds Celtic it is actually composed of Sanskrit - a classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. This sense of mythical spirituality from both songs did not come by accidentally, because they are both about religion.

The theme song of Civilization 4, Baba Yetu, is actually "Our Lord's Prayer" spoken in Swahili. If you don't know, the prayer is referenced from Christian Bible Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4.

Our Father, Who is in heaven,
Holy is Your Name;
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Battlestar Galatica Themesong, "Are You Alive?", is actually one of the Hindu Mantra: "OM bhūr bhuvah svah tat savitur varēnyam bhargō dēvasya dhīmahi dhiyō yō nah pracōdayāt"

ॐ भूर्भुवस्वः ।

(a) तत् सवितुर्वरेण्यं ।

(b) भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि ।

(c) धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥

Here is the rough translation:

O earth, atmosphere, heaven:

(a,b) May we attain that excellent glory of Savior the God:

(c) So may he stimulate our prayers.

Maybe religion is deep in our psychic, because I felt the inspiration before knowing either of these songs as religious. Maybe Voltaire is right, he said famously, "Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer" which roughly translated means "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent one". The appreciation of spirituality seems to be an universal quality. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientist remarked on the topic of religion and said, "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind." That humble admiration is an apt description of how I felt about Baba Yetu.

One of the fanatic fan of Baba Yetu actually recorded and translated the song. Now I know you are just dying to read lyrics of a song you have never heard of. *wink*. To solve your dilemma, the composer of Baba Yute posted his own song on his website. This version (3:29 & 4.78MB) is slightly longer than the one you hear in the game (3:28 & 3.17MB). I think I like the song in the game slightly better, it is more condensed and the sound slightly sharper. If you bought the game Civilization 4, you can grab the song from your installed folder. Normally it is "Program Files/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4/Assets/Sounds/Soundtrack" folder. It is called "OpeningMenu.mp3". If neither of those link works, here is another one courtesy of Civfanatics added June 24 of 2005, www.civfanatics.net/downloads/civ4/music/BabaYetu.mp3.

Now that you have the music, you can feel free to sing along with the wonderfully transcribed lyric below. Oh, the silliness of singing in another language no one knows, I love it. In the US I can simply sing in Chinese and people would look at me funny, now I can sing Swahili in Taiwan ^_^

CHORUS
Baba yetu, Yesu uliye
Mbinguni yetu, Yesu, amina!
Baba yetu, Yesu, uliye
Jina lako litukuzwe.
(x2)

Utupe leo chakula chetu
Tunachohitaji utusamehe
Makosa yetu, hey!
Kama nasi tunavyowasamehe
Waliotukosea usitutie
Katika majaribu, lakini
Utuokoe, na yule, milelea milele!

CHORUS

Ufalme wako ufike utakalo
Lifanyike duniani kama mbinguni. (Amina)

CHORUS

Utupe leo chakula chetu
Tunachohitaji utusamehe
Makosa yetu, hey!
Kama nasi tunavyowasamehe
Waliotukosea usitutie
Katika majaribu, lakini
Utuokoe, na yule, simama mwehu

Baba yetu, Yesu, uliye
Jina lako litukuzwe.
(x2)

Here is the English translation and if you want another here is a link to the japanese translation:

The song is wonderful and I didn't expect its background to be so rich - so full of history. I was just going to do a quick write up before going to bed. Let it be a lesson for me - never try to start a post around 11:43pm, because it is now 4:41am. The more I research this song the more interesting information appears.

This is not just a pretty song, it is a piece of art with complex history and meaning. Which really strikes me as interesting at 4 in the morning, since I am attracted by pretty girls, but I fall in love for the depth of their soul, not unlike how I fell in love with this song. There is a lesson here somewhere*, I will think more on it once I get my lovely whole 2 hours of sleep.

Reference:
Wikipedia
Civilization Fantatics Center
Civilization Fanatics' Forums: MSTK's Post
Christopher Tin's Homepage
Yale language research forum, Swahili section

*Now that I look it over, I see no profound lesson. The mind does play tricks when running on an empty tank. The only thing I can think of is similar to the chinese zan saying, "A cup is only usefull because of its emptiness". You can't fall in love with a girl if she has no depth, because there would be no where to fall. Like you can fall in a well, but you can only fall on a ground. Not really profound, just a fact.

p.s. MSTK picked up the basic chord structure to Baba Yetsu, so now you can play the instruments too~!

[Lyrics][Civilization 4][Religion]