The ties that bind us are the very ones that separate us.
We have shared a lot of things in common;
And yet most of those common things put a barrier between us.
We have laughed at the same jokes,
Danced to the same drums,
Rejoiced to similar songs,
And sang in similar tunes;
The ties that bind us together.
And yet our differences are always ever apparent.

For as I laugh with tears in my eyes,
You laugh with your teeth,
Hiding the very emotion that binds us from the world to see;
As I dance to the budima drums,
You dance to the drum beats of the kuomboka,
Having the sound that binds us, separate us by how its produced.
I dance to ching’ande and you dance to mfukutu,
Excusing the world from seeing our similar steps.

Oh, the ties that bind us.
I sang Jesus loves me when you sang give me the bible;
Spreading your words in Bemba as I spread mine in Tonga.
How the ties that bind us are so quick to separate us.

Wow, I say to myself as I look at you standing right in front of me.
The bonds of our ties grow stronger as we grow older,
And yet weaker with the passage of time;
We share from the same vein, bound by blood forever;
And yet the differences in the ******* that provided for us separate us.
We come from the same womb,
And yet the little differences in the arrangement of our protein molecules make us different.
Indeed the ties that bind us.

Our mother rejoices in calling us all her children;
And yet the men that take pride in us differ.
Our father sings songs of the products of his manhood;
And yet the women that sing along with him sing differently.
He is the tie that binds;
And he the one that separates us.