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Calypso has given us a handful of unforgettable female figures. There is, for example, Kitchener’s Flag Woman and Scrunter’s Woman on the Base, there is David Rudder’s Bahia Girl and Sparrow’s Winer Girl from Princes Town.
Not one of those four has a name.
(Copyright Analisa Caruth/Wired868)
But the women I want to begin with all have names. And that spawns two questions with which I want to test how intimately you know calypso’s inside stories:
(1) What do Audrey, Ethel, Jane, Janet, Jean and Dinah, Joan, Lorraine, Mae Mae, Marajhin and Marajhin’s sister, Maria, Melda, Nora, Rebecca, Rose and Stella have in common?
(2) How do they all differ from Louise?
Number 1 is suckeye, right? They are all calypso ladies. Not in the same sense as Calypso Rose, Heather McIntosh, Karene Asche, Singing Francine and Singing Sandra, who all have calypsoes sung by them.
Photo: Wired868
No, these ladies have all had calypsoes sung about them.
Number 2 is not quite so easy, right? Who the hell, TC might ask, is Louise?
Here is a clue:
Everybody business, the Mighty Duke sang in 1968, we come right here and we let you know. (…) Dat is calypso.
Nobody disagrees, I think, that that is what calypsonians do; they come right here (on the calypso stage) and let everybody know your business.
If you’re female, Duke omitted to mention, you’re a prime target. Often, as I think the 15-plus ladies ranging alphabetically from Audrey to Stella will attest, an unsuspecting one.
Which is how Louise is different. We know she knew that kaisomen talk. She knew kaisomen are not to be trusted. Here is Sparrow telling her story in Lulu:
I took out mih wallet / When I see she was so hard to get / I said buy some shoes or a nice hat; / we could always fix up that. / I only give she the money till she reach the shack. / When ah finish with she, ah go take it back. / But she smart like if she smell the rat. / She pull way and then she start:
Ah fraid you make a calypso on me / Ah don’t want you to make no calypso on me. / Ah know nobody goin’ see / and is only the two ah we. / Sparrow, ah fraid yuh go make a calypso on me…
However, he was also often criticised for misogynistic lyrics.
And, obviously, she was right. Sparrow did!
But it’s not just females. Duke makes no bones about it; we let you know, he said, everybody’s business. Ask Merchant about Norman. Or Cro Cro about Lambie’s funeral. Or Watchman about The Ladder.
The calypsonian’s role is to let the cat out of the bag. It is why Lulu is wary about getting into bed, both literally and figuratively, with Sparrow.
It is also why a few high-profile calypsonians, including Lord Blakie (Hold the Pussy), Lord Kitchener (My Pussin) and Sparrow (Ah Fraid Pussy Bite mih), have also come forward to share compelling stories not about females but about felines.
And since there’s more than one way to skin a cat…
To kill a cyat, Black Prince sings unabashedly in My Desire, has always been my desire. / To kill a cyat. / Ever since ah was a young fellah / No big stick or no hot water, / just strength and stamina…
(…) Ah jam one a fo’daymorning. / Sun rise, we still fightin’ / Positive ah had it pass out on de ground; / when ah tun rong, / de pussy watch mih and yawn
Both in My Desire and in The Letter, the material shared by Black Prince is deeply personal. But what makes him more compelling, arguably more successful than his fellow calypsonians is the position he favours for his stories. Narratorial, of course, nothing out of the Kama Sutra.
We’ll return to The Letter later. Let us look at a handful of first-person efforts by Gypsy, Shadow, Sparrow and Zandolie where the calypsonian telling the story is also at the centre of the action.
But first, as counterpoint, we shall look at a third-person offering from Baron, who does not get top billing.
In his story, a calypsonian is also the star of the show. But that calypsonian is Shorty, not Baron, the singer making it clear from the outset that he is mere rapporteur—and second-hand at that!
(Courtesy Annalicia Caruth/Wired868)
I wasn’t dey, his Severe Licking begins. Is Bomber and Cypher who say / dey see Shorty beating a gyurl the other day.
Though not an eye-witness, Baron clearly delights in reporting his fellow calypsonians’ account of the account Shorty gives of himself in a mêlée on Charlotte Street.
Dey say he could have done it privately / and doh leh people see. / But infronta everybody / ah hear Shorty lick she. (…)
De gyurl say, ‘Constable, have a care. / Dis is my man lickin’ mih here. / And if he feel to lick mih / he could lick mih. / Dammit! Doh interfere!’ (…)
He lick from she chin / down to she shin. / He well lick up she pimpipilimpim
We are treated to the juicy details of the Love Man’s ungentle (cue Savage, Maestro’s 1976 defence of the West Indian male) encounter with the little lady—a noun conveying merely gender!
Shorty get mad and he pelt a kick. / The gyul bob and weave under it / and she hold on to he squeeze-it / and start squeezing it…
Baron gives us the full Monty, putting all of Shorty’s business in the public domain, holding nothing back.
Photo: Lost Tribe
Duke would, I reckon, have been very proud of him.
Editor’s Note: See Wired868 for Part Two on Friday 1 November.
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Earl Best taught cricket, French, football and Spanish at QRC for many years and has written consistently for the Tapia and the Trinidad and Tobago Review since the 1970’s.
He is also a former sports editor at the Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad Express and is now a senior lecturer in Journalism at COSTAATT.
