You may know the song "Kumbaya" from singing it around the fire at summer camp. The lyrics are simple and repetitive, the music only has three chords, and it's slow enough to wind down a bunch of rowdy kids and get them ready for a good night's sleep. But where did it come from? From what language does the word kumbaya come from? In tracing the song from your summer camp days backwards, there's a string of people who laid claim to the song and had the backstory to prove it, until an earlier version was found with a different story. The song turns out to be way older than we thought.
Then we trace the history of the song forward. First it was a spiritual, then a camp song, then a protest song, and finally a derisive term for naive idealism. "Kumbaya" has gone through a lot of twists and turns, as you'll see in an article at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: Benny Mazur)
Commenting on Neatorama will earn you NeatoPoints!