Paper long abstract:

Author: Laryea Korku

School children in Ghana march to the classrooms to different songs to start the day. As children we lustily sang the songs and eagerly and enthusiastically marched to the beat of the drum at school and also during Independence Day celebrations on 6th March. School children today go through the same motions without a clue of the significance of what is sung; because the songs are taught by our teachers or parents devoid of the historical and social context. As an adult however, I have had the opportunity to reflect on some of these songs again and have come to appreciate their historical significance especially through studies done in African Oral Literature and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The paper will focus on three popular ‘marching’ songs sung at childhood; each significant in its own way and taken from pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial Ghana. The first is a Ga song which talks about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade; the second, also in Ga is about a war the Gas engaged in and the third, an English one, was composed in the mid-1970s. There are translations to the Ga songs.