Walking the calypso plank

Why has the calypso “Sweet, sweet TT/ O, how ah love up me country/ no place in the world I’d rather be/ All this sugar cyar be good for me.... Trini to de bone” apparently taken the country by storm? Is it because it has found some resonance in the collective psyche and stirred a nascent patriotic spirit? Could you couple it, for instance, with Iwer George’s “Ah Home!” as patriotic or nation-building songs, promoting or celebrating the much-heralded “National Unity?”

Well, my own guess is that our dim-witted and devious politicians would be only too eager to jump on the bandwagon and attempt to identify with and even exploit the popular sentiment thereby engendered. I very much doubt that it would ever occur to them that, whatever the intention or inspiration of the authors might be, the songs’ popularity may well be the fact that they resonate with a certain sense of “protest” against those who spare no effort, for their own dastardly reasons, to stir up divisiveness and fissiparous tendencies in the society.

A perennial question is the extent to which calypsos or calypsonians “inform” and/or influence popular opinion and, in part, the fortunes of individual politicians and their political parties or what pass for political parties. Now whereas the individual calypsonian might be dismissed as “a man of straw,”  collectively, on occasion, they may be considered as “men of considerable fibre”. So much so that when they perceive a common threat, their collective reaction is sometimes described as; “The calypso empire strikes back.”

The calypsonian’s natural quarry is the politician and where a certain lacuna in our Republican constitution makes possible the emergence and even persistence of inflated, collapsible political nonentities at the highest echelons of political power, no one can (or, rather, should) deny that there’s a “political” role for the calypsonian. It was David Rudder, I believe, who once said that calypsonians can produce “lyrics to make a politician cringe”. Gypsy went further than that and claimed that, “calypsonians can sing songs that make governments strong and they can also sing songs that bring governments down.” Whether the power lies in an ability to shape public opinion or an uncanny knack of “going with the flow” is up for discussion.

But lest we get carried away with calypso’s potential and become too academic, we might take a look at an editorial comment which observed: “Once upon a time in this land the calypsonian was an artist with words when he created humour and pointed social commentary...Today, however, the rapier has been replaced with a broad cutlass, and sometimes even a tractor blade......No attempt at all is being made to avoid defaming persons who cannot defend themselves.  No attempts are made to exercise the responsibility to stay within the law and the limits of decency.” “Calypsonians,” the editorial continued, “seem to forget that they too are subject to the laws of libel and obscenity.” Sometimes one is left to wonder whether the calypsonian operates outside or above the law or is a law unto himself.

There are probably historical reasons why the calypsonian is allowed a certain latitude. Now it’s extremely difficult to bring a calypsonian to book even where he has clearly “overstepped the mark”. Now, not many individuals feel that they can stand up to the onslaught of the “calypso empire” and it’s probably felt that it takes a brave or foolhardy public figure to cross swords with the calypsonian, given what is seen as the track record of public figures being lampooned and laughed out of office. Ironically, there are those who feel that tolerating their excesses may be the price we have to pay for not curtailing the space we have to bring public figures to book when “they can break the law — in the most wanton fashion —  and have the law protect them same time,” as Mighty Sparrow once suggested, with, I suspect more wisdom than he knew. Those who occupy high public office and abuse it — surreptitiously or otherwise — cannot complain if they’re up for public scrutiny, at any rate during the Carnival season. As they say, “yuh cyar play mas’ and ’fraid powder.”

Now it might surprise you that all of our prime ministers have had to “walk the plank,” as far as the calypsonians are concerned. None, more so than the “venerable” Dr Eric Williams. Granted that at the beginning of his “reign” and for a long time he was “the darling of the calypsonian”. However, towards the latter part he was subjected to, or more correctly the subject of less than complimentary calypso attention. I was quite surprised when I heard some of those calypsos. One needs to remember that in those days there were only two radio stations and, well, you might say that “discretion was the better part of valour”. So calypso jabs aimed at the doc’s jugular were seldom, if ever aired.

Yes, yes, I know that Dr Williams’ tolerance of calypso criticism can be vouched for by response to Chalkdust’s criticisms, to wit, “Let the jackass bray”, but Lord Relator might have a different story to tell re his rather innocuous “advice to de Doc that it’s time to take a rest”. George Chambers had to contend with Gypsy’s “Captain, the ship is sinking,” and Plain Clothes’ “Chambers done see”.  It was ANR Robinson’s turn with Chalkie’s “The driver cannot drive”. Patrick Manning’s innumerable unforced errors and inexcusable blunders gave Luta a veritable grocery list, which he sarcastically punctuated with: “De driver driving good, de country moving smoothe.....” Now there’s this “love/hate” relationship between Basdeo Panday and the calypsonians.

Panday could easily outwit the calypsonians by not giving them anything to sing about. But clever devil that Panday is, he enjoys the notoriety and apparently believes or wishes others to believe that “Panday-Bashing”, however justified, is synonymous with “Indian Bashing.” What utter rubbish!