Born from raw emotion — how James Phillips conceived the song ‘Shot Down’

There was a music shop, somewhere across the road from Jameson’s Bar in Commissioner Street, Joburg, on the opposite corner. It was a Friday afternoon in the early 1980s and James Phillips and I went there to buy some guitar strings. 

After the purchase on the way back to my car, I lost him. James was a fast walker in his weathered blue flip-flops. He had a very long stride and it wasn’t easy to keep up. He was suddenly not in front of me, and I stopped to look back.

James was standing at the corner of Rissik and Main reading a newspaper at a pavement vendor’s display and I walked back to join him. The paper was the New Nation, and his eyes were locked on the front-page story. The piece was accompanied by a huge photograph spanning the full width of the tabloid depicting a child in short grey school pants, playing in a township street.

I glanced up at James and I was taken aback when I saw tears streaming down his cheeks. I knew had a depth of feeling but I had never seen a display of emotion like this from him before. I didn’t know what to do but put my arm around his shoulders and steer him into a nearby coffee shop. I still remember the green tablecloths and the sterility of the lino-tiled interior as I guided him, openly sobbing, to a table near the window.

I held his arm as he said: “Why did they have to do it?  Everyone saw him playing in the street.”

I hadn’t seen the story and had no answer. He continued weeping for the next while. We didn’t order anything and eventually left the shop and never spoke of it again.

Outside the shop, we passed another newspaper vendor and I perused the page properly. The lead paragraph told of a child who had been caught in the crossfire of SA Defence Force bullets and had died in the streets of Tembisa. The bold headline simply said, “Shot Down!”. The picture was obviously a mock-up of what had actually transpired.

I had a rare glimpse into the pain, compassion, and emotion that I suspect James felt on a daily basis. By then, he had put his strong religious convictions on the shelf. At our first meeting in 1979, James could almost have been a preacher, like his dad. But later, I think he revamped his spirituality and reverence for God into a socially acceptable form. Music had become the means of expression for James’s sense of beauty and love.

Although we never spoke of that day again, James’s song Shot Down expresses all he had felt. From our experience that day, an unspoken but special bond was born between us. Yet the experience had not yet found its proper conclusion. Completion only came a decade later.

December 1993

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