The song “Africa” by Toto is a seminal part of the “zeitgeist” of the nineteen-eighties. Nobody, or at least nobody with any sort of claim to an awareness of culture, would or could dispute this. From tune to tone, notes to chords, sounds to instruments, this track is “prime ‘hit’ material.” Unfortunately for my own personal safety, however, I am of the opinion that we, as a society, should bring our ample praise for “Africa” down an octave.

The music is not my primary cause of concern with this ballad. The chorus, and the well-known wailing to be found therein? Ballyhoo away, unwashed masses! See if I care! I don’t! The popularity of this composition is far from the forefront of my mind, as it always is; I hardly ever even think about it.

There is, however, one lyric that always just seems to “get my goat.” The offending piece of verbiage is “As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.” Though I am not at all upset by this lyric, per se, and have been very much able to continue on with my life knowing that it is a line in a song that the vox populi has declared to be acceptable, it is nonetheless extremely flawed. So, let us briefly “dig in” to just why this line is not fit for public consumption.

Webster’s Dictionary defines simile as “a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is introduced by like or as.” The word in this definition that I wish to “zero in on” is “unlike.” The two things that are being compared in a simile are supposed to be disparate; saying ‘this mountain rises like this other mountain’ does not provide the listener a vivid image. It would not be unlike some fool saying “I am the Michael Jordan of ‘slam-dunking’” or “I am the Robert Gates of running the Department of Defense.” It is simply not very effective writing.

This is just where the problems begin, however. To say that Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus is nothing short of insulting to Kilimanjaro. Mount Kilimanjaro, at her peak, rises 5,895 meters, the highest peak on the whole continent of Africa. Meanwhile, Olympus, that puny pinky toe, rises just 2,918 meters above sea level—less than half the height of dignified and mighty Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro does not rise “like Olympus;” she is in a different stratosphere, if you will forgive my poetic misrepresentation of the layers of the atmosphere.

Indeed, much like the atmosphere, there are layers upon layers of issues with this lyric. Now, we reach the troposphere: its context. If we include the line immediately preceding the now-infamous lyric, we can see that the song reads “I know that I must do what’s right/As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.” If the speaker uses such a flawed analogy in asserting that he knows he must do what is right, how could we know what he believes to be right? Anyone with the gall to blatantly display a lack of knowledge of the world’s mountains could not have a very deep understanding of ethics. They certainly wouldn’t understand the economic concept of “creative destruction,” and all of the reasons why the taxi industry is antiquated and deserves to be eliminated by newer, more dynamic ridesharing apps. Torn apart, those taxi services should be, torn apart like a gazelle on the plains of the Serengeti. Uber, Lyft—these are lionesses who prowl the fertile soil of the world economy, and taxi unions who get in the way should be utterly annihilated.

Anyways, I’m going to give you four stars, because you drove the wrong way on that on-ramp. Thanks!