Since VOB 92.9 got combobulated I don’t know if Ken Husbands’ lyrical interpretations still exist.
Which is a pity, given that several important songs are out there just begging to have their true messages revealed.
Rihanna’s Man Down, to my mind, is a clear indictment against wishy-washy Caribbean attorneys general who in the face of almost everyday murder and rape have done little to get the gallows swinging.
So when in the video some ugly guy interferes with Rihanna, she wastes him.
I have no problem with that. Just what a decent Bajan girl would be doing in a rough Jamaican situation, given the fuss they made about our immigration procedures and Redjet, is another matter.
Another song being discussed is Stiffy’s I Carry My Sheep To Town.
I don’t understand the criticism. Mary had a little lamb which followed her everywhere. Sir Charles “Cow” Williams has a sow pig in his house. A Burton fellow drives around with two goats.
Even Moody’s rating agency is into sheep mode, downgrading us from Baa2 to Baa3. So why shouldn’t Stiffy carry his sheep to town?
Better yet, Samatha the sheep is a Bajan Blackbelly. And with a true Bajan Blackbelly, you never get horns. Which is more than you can say of many other female species.
On another note, Gabby has been claiming that only “musicians and academics” appreciate that Ole Ashé is a “great song” (like how only wise men could appreciate the king’s new clothes?).
He is missing the point. Ole Ashé, especially with its Mike Sealy arrangement, is a great song. So is the Blue Danube Waltz. But do either belong in our calypso competition?
Some years ago, my friend Ridley Greene came up with “Spoucaluk” or some such: a spouge/calypso/tuk beat. Now, following Gabby’s lead, Duke Check ED Shirt is promoting Operalypso, an opera/calypso fusion. Should Cut De Ham To De Bone take him to the finals, will that be allowed?
Anyhow, Ridley has challenged me to come out fighting this year. And I’ve been roughing out a wash of songs. Here is a chorus from Black White Man:
From the dawn of creation, it’s his great aberration, white man’s selfish greed; he killed all the buffalo, to starve out the Indians, and take their land for his seed.
Bush and Blairweeny, like Hitler, Mussolini, guilty of unprovoked attack; deciding who must rule, making leaders a tool, in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But when you compare the Libya intervention, drone attacks against convention, all typical of a white man’s push; you have to agree, though it’s so sad to see, that Obama’s whiter than Bush.
And a snip from Too Tweet!:
Long time it wasn’t easy to chat up a girl, with her mother and aunts on guard; when you hear them answer the telephone, you know that things goin’ be hard: “Marcia is doing her homework, she cannot take your call, phone back in maybe ten years time, or better yet, not at all.”
But nowadays girls tell you: “Feel free to google me, put your comments in the space below; check my face on Spacebook and all the friends I know.
Then if you want to make your move, there’s just one way to today’s girls’ hearts; find yourself on Twitter, and post a picture of your private parts.”
Finally, Six-Ten, a dub song for the older ladies who can’t handle the modern doubled-over “6:30” dance position:
Ten past six is the old girls’ craze; bend over gently, let the pit bull graze.
Is that a gun in your pocket, tell me, young man; if it touch my botsey, I goin’ brek yuh hand. Don’t hug my belly, nor wine too fast;
I had breadfruit for lunch and may pass gas.
Pull me back upright, rummatism in muh knee; any Ellcoes ’bout hey, I has to weewee. Come in de bushes and do a l’il ting? I ent do nothing so since George the Sixth was king . . . .
And so on . . . .
Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator. Email porkhoad@gmail.com