The Lion Sleeps Tonight

You've gotta have heard the song. But I bet you don't know it was written by a South African musician, Solomon Linda. It became a chart topper in the West when legendary US folk singer, Pete Seeger (incongruously famous for his own songs of social protest) covered it in the 1950s - and claimed authorship. In subsequent decades, it has been recorded by over 150 European and American artists, racked up hundreds of thousands of album sales. Most recently, it became a global brand as the theme track for Disney's nausea-inducing megahit, The Lion King.

The song's original writer, Solomon Linda, received 10 shillings (about a dollar) for the copyright in 1952, from Gallo studios in South Africa. After the release of The Lion King, Linda's family sued Disney for royalties on the use of the song. An undisclosed out-of-court settlement was agreed just this February. Too late for Linda, who died 1962, aged 53, of kidney disease. And for his daughter Adelaide, who died in 2001, of AIDS.

Both could have received life-saving medical treatment from less than
one-tenth of
one percent of
the fifteen million dollars
grossed by the song worldwide.

(Source: Emma MacDonald,The Age, Australia, April 22, 2006)