U.S.: Thinking about kaiso

I'm not going to post news today. For one, I'm feeling blue. For another, I want to talk about other things. I've got panorama and calypso competitions and such on my mind. This is really odd because I've never gone back to T&T for Carnival. The last Carnival I saw was that of 1971. This is true even though I spent eight years in Trinidad in the 1980s. I guess I'm not a Carnival baby.

My memories of Carnival are dominated by recollections of my grandmother toting me along. That's how they did it in those days. You were a child; Carnival was busy, and nobody wanted you to get lost in the crowd. So, my grandmother would tote me along. She'd grip my hand firmly and clamp it under her arm pretty much close to her armpit. That meant I pretty much had to walk along on tip-toe to keep up. Ma would bring her grand-kids to watch Carnival, and, for years, we got no further than the bakery at the top of Cooper and Coffee Streets. Right there. You didn't see much mas there at all. A few masqueraders, that's all. You mostly saw crowds. She could've taken us to the top of Cipero Street there where the bands turned to head down to Skinner's Park. She didn't. By six o'clock, if so late, we were hustled back inside. That was it for us and Carnival.

But this post isn't about Carnival, per se; it's about calypso. Rudder's Calypso is the song that best expresses the essence of calypso. Lyrics to make a politician cringe.... Rhythm to make you move your body. Calypsonians have ever been free to sing what they want in Trinidad, but not to offend social sensibilities. In other words, the calypsonian can sing to high heaven that the PM doesn't know what he's doing -- Gypsy's Captain, the Ship is Sinking shaped the way Trinbagonians perceived the government of George Chambers; however, vulgarity and obscenity are banned from the radios.

The thing is, high hilarity quite often go hand in hand with vulgarity and obscenity in calypso. Whoever heard Funny's For Cane on the radio after the first couple times they played it?

Monday, she went for cane
Tuesday, she went back again
Wednesday, the girl went for cane
She must be gone in the back there for cane again

Funny brought the house down with that, and I personally can't recall the lyrics without laughing. The double entendre, the verbal legerdemain is simply wonderful. Years later, he followed up with The For Cane Man. I don't think that got too much air-time either.

The for cane man
Is here again
The for cane man is here
In trouble in Port of Spain
Now I'm never going to let you down
Seventy-six I am stronger than strong
And that is a fact
Cuz the for cane man is back!

It's all in the pronunciation, boys and girls, all in the pronunciation. Trinis are sly with words; we've this passion for double entendre that could be a hangover from slavery. I dunno. But you always have to listen on more than one levels when Trinis talk. Fact of life.

You know, one of the best calypsonians to ever come down the pike was Sparrow's WIner Girl. That was a brilliant combination of lyrics and melody, and the listener just gets caught up in the whole experience the calypsonian is recounting. Listen to this bit of sheer poetry:

If she only make a joke and only tell me yes
I going straight and look for her to buy she wedding dress
Believe me when I tell you she over sexy.
Is a thousand and one man trying to get she
Everything bout she so sweet
She sweet
She sweet
She sweet, she sweet, she sweet!
A drummer and a saxophone
She on the stage alone
When they start to fling the tone
She wine
She wined them down to the ground
Winer-girl from Princes Town.

It is this wonderful marriage of lyrics and melody that made calypso great. Calypso told a story; there was progression from beginning to end. The narrative event in the calypso is not a static thing for it presents the hearer with a scene, a dialogue even, with which he can follow along, empathize, and just plain ol' partake of. Winer Girl is a far cry from get something and wave, so very popular with soca.

I'm fond of Sparrow. Very fond. In my early teens, my next-door neighbor on Grange Road, Cocoyea, was Mr. Evans Davies, dead and gone now, God rest his soul. Mr. Davies had a collection of Sparrow's calypsoes unmatched anywhere else but in Rhyner's Records. When he went to work, he used to leave his house open so that I could go in there and sit and listen to calypsoes. Total treat. So I listened to Elaine See the Moon -- it took me years before I knew what the hell Sparrow was singing about:

Unfortunately, and she pointing up to the sky
Unfortunately, there's a moon on high
Don't be so angry darling; I'm not to blame
Ask any woman, and she'll show you the bloody same
Unfortunately, it is rather unfortunate
Postpone the damn thing for another day!

Well Spoken Moppers

Pumpulumically speaking, you're a pussyistic man
Most elaquitably full of shitification
Your spendiforous views are too catsasstical
Too cuntimoratical, too bitchimistical.

Then there's Take Your Bundle and Go

Take your bundle and leave and go
Don't stay here no more
Your mind must be tell you
I'm a real cunumunu
I go prove to you that ain't so
But if you bend down in front me naked
To pick up something below the bed
This same cunumunu
Telling you, Betty-Lou, dou-dou
Is joke I making with you.

This looks like it'll be longer than expected. So I'll come back to it later. Will actually go scrounge some news, see what's happening.