K'naan Releases a Politically Correct Version of his song “Wavin’ Flag” for the World Cup. Does it ruin the original?

[video found via The Beautiful Game Blog]

K'naan most popular song, Wavin’ Flag, has been chosen to be a theme song for this summer’s World Cup, which is great for K'naan. The thing is, the meaningful and perfectly raw lyrics of the original Wavin’ Flag have been replaced with more cheerful words to make the song something to dance to. 

For example, he changes the lines, “So we struggling, fighting to eat and we wondering when we’ll be free” to “give you freedom, give you fire, give you reason, take you higher. See the champions take the field now, unify us, make us feel proud.” I personally just feel that the original version is so much more powerful and meaningful than the FIFA-endorsed rendition, and taking out such vivid lines like “Born to a throne; stronger than Rome, but Violent prone, poor people zone. But it’s my home, all I have known” really does not do justice to K'naan’s ability to create superb prose describing what growing up in Africa is really like.

Now I think K'naan is brilliant. Labeling himself as the “Dusty Foot Philosopher”, the Somali-Canadian artist said, “I wanted to represent the “have nots” philosophy, that of the young kids who are able to dream beyond their means and think about things in this universe that they have not read about…so they’re philosophers intrinsically and culturally and poetically without having the means to be an avid reader or a traveler." 

This new version only bothers me because I feel like it will become more popular than the original, which, for me, is sad. Anyway, what do you think of FIFA (and sponsor Coca-Cola) changing "Wavin’ Flag” to make it more easy-going and politically correct? 

(the original version)