Winnie Odinga today delivered the most personal and heartbreaking tribute of the state funeral, singing her late father’s favourite song, “Jamaica Farewell,” but with a painful and personal twist that moved the entire nation.
In a moment that will be remembered as one of the most powerful of the day, she bravely changed the song’s famous lyrics to tell the story of her father’s own final, tragic journey, from his sad passing in India to his final resting place in Bondo.
Winnie Odinga, speaking from the podium at Nyayo Stadium, first shared intimate memories of her father, a side of him the public rarely saw.
She described him as “gentle and humorous” at home, a man who loved storytelling and music, before telling the packed stadium she would sing a part of his favourite song.
What followed was a deeply personal and sorrowful adaptation that left thousands of mourners, and leaders, in tears.
Winnie Odinga changed the song’s happy journey from a trip to the Caribbean to her father’s final, fatal voyage.
Instead of singing the original line, “when I reach Jamaica,” she poignantly sang, “and when I reached India, I made a stop.”
This single, powerful word change immediately silenced the stadium, grounding the cheerful song in the heartbreaking reality of where her father had passed away just days earlier, a moment of profound and shared grief.
Winnie Odinga then delivered the final, most heartbreaking twist. She changed the iconic lyric about leaving a girl in “Kingston town” to a deeply personal farewell to her own roots.
With her voice full of emotion, she sang, “I had to leave a little girl in Bondo town,” a direct and personal reference to their ancestral home where her father will be laid to rest on Sunday.
The beautifully altered lyric transformed a classic song into a daughter’s final, unforgettable eulogy to her father.
By Kenyans