It is my understanding that when David Paich wrote the song Africa for the album Toto IV, the song almost didn’t make it on the album. It was added as the last song and was in fact song number 10.
Interestingly, at this point, David Paich had never been to Africa.
Steve Lukather reportedly called the song an experiment, saying that the lyrics were goofy.
And yet, arguably, this song from Toto IV became one of the biggest, if not THE biggest smash hit of the band, next to songs like Rosanna and Hold The Line.
The reason I bring all this up is for those of you out there that are songwriters and aspiring artists.
We never know where our big break will come from. We never know what song we’ve written that we may have discarded or thought of as not being “the hit”, might resonate with people.
My encouragement to everyone is to keep working, keep trying, and keep putting it out there. You will eventually resonate with people over your music.
Sometimes, it’s just a simple case of timing.
Other times, someone might hear your music when they’re in a certain “mood” and not appreciate it, and then turn right around when they’re in a different mood, hear how wonderful it is, and find how much it means to them.
Let’s keep going guys! Let’s keep our art and our story alive!
You have a very unique story and only you can tell it, and that story just might mean a lot to a lot of people.
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