This is the song that Lucky acknowledges broke the “political virginity” of the state-run South African Broadcasting Corporation. The title track includes the line: “Too many people hate apartheid, why do you like it”. The first instincts at the SABC were to ban the album, but it was persuaded to reconsider its decision, and an anti-apartheid song received airplay for the first time.
“Together As One was a difficult one. Dave Segal was there and Richard Siluma was there, and when I mentioned the word apartheid — because they didn’t know the song before we did it here so they just heard me singing in the song, “Too many people hate apartheid” — they immediately stopped the tape and they said you can’t say that, you can’t say apartheid. That was what was happening at that time; you couldn’t mention that word in a song, and so we stopped and talked for a while. But eventually, we thought, yes, this is what I wanted to say and this is it.
“That was at a time when South Africa was changing, and we did not have as much trouble as we expected. The SABC wanted books and things, wanting to know where I come from, how I think, and things like that, just checking me out basically. And after that, they played the song.”
