A calypso hymn

Although I write calypsos in the newspaper every year, no calypso singer has ever approached me to buy my lyrics. At first, I found this puzzling. After all, not only am I a professional writer, but I am this country’s only real satirist. Since calypso’s raison d’?tre is satire, and since my calypsos have been trenchant, cutting, impartial, and rhymed, I’d have expected to get at least one commission. But it was only this year that I realised why no calypso singer wants me to write for them: it is because my calypsos have been trenchant, cutting, impartial, and rhymed.

I have therefore decided to change tack. For the last two years, I have written calypsos which mocked Prime Minister Patrick Manning. I did this because, despite the wealth of material the PNM continues to offer the nation’s calypsonians — or, rather, the East-West corridor’s, Point Fortin’s and parts of San Fernando’s calypsonians — have refused to touch the Manning jewels. Imagine: 800 new calypsos, according to TUCO, and none of them critical of the Manning administration.

Even The Mighty Chalkdust, who in a recent interview asserted that calypsonians should never be partisan, managed to blame the Opposition more than the Government for the crime situation in his 2005 offering. And Chalkie is a man who knows calypso, as shown by the fact that he has won the crown seven times and nobody remembers any of his songs. So obviously, despite my skills as a writer, I have totally failed to grasp the true rules of constructing calypso. Perhaps because I am an atheist, I didn’t understand that, for calypsonians, Manning is the Archbishop in the PNM church. So what I am going to do in this Lenten season is write a calypso which portrays the Prime Minister as the Chosen One. Maybe then a calypsonian will buy my work, and I will have enough money for a thick gold chain, a box of KFC, and a pair of cosquelle shoes.

Repent and pray
Lyrics by KB, copyright 2005
I am the Prime Minister, ruler of the land,
Put here by Almighty God;
I tell de people to repent and pray,
Is dem who have the place kilkitay;
I administer with a iron hand
And use the velvet glove on my iron rod,
I tell every Trini to repent and pray,
Is only me who could dingolay.

Chorus: Repent in the de tent
Pray night and day,
Doh eat no meat for Lent
All all de crime go go away!
Is adultery does cause tsunami,
Is horn does cause storm,
So if all ah we turn holy,
All we problem go gorn!

When it rain, is flood in Port-of-Spain,
Overflow in Caparo with massive damage;
But it wouldn have no flood again
If people doh make graven image.
Even landslide we could easily prevent,
With no engineering brain,
Just follow the fourth commandment
And doh take the Lord name in vain.

First Invocation: Repent with Pastor Cuffie
To use the death penalty
Pray with Pastor Browne
To put homos in the ground.
Join with Pastor Dottin
To make youth’s brains rotten.

That is why I make Mrs Manning
De Education Minister of the land.
If that was wrong, Cro Cro woulda sing
About chopping off she hand.

Chorus: Repent in the de tent
Pray night and day,
Preach how to be abstinent
To keep HIV at bay.
Doh teach about condoms,
Just get the children fraid:
Because if we want US funds
Some youths go have to get AIDS.
 
Traffic every day on the highway
And drivers want to cuss;
But if they want a clear byway
They only have to obey Leviticus.
So don’t cut your hair or eat shellfish
If you want clear roads in the nation,
And if no road deaths is your wish
Then doh lime with woman during menstruation.

Second Invocation: Heavenly Father, hear my prayer
Reduce the country’s death toll;
Do not let my people have any fear
So they will believe the next MORI poll.
Lord, heal my nation’s ills
By granting me this boon:
Shut up Suzanne Mills
And put me in the Red House soon.

The Lord say, Thou shalt not kill
But still every day is a violent death;
What happen on de Hill is not by my will,
For my neighbour’s ox I don’t covet. 
So I need not repent,
Is the CJ who need to pray,
For delivering wrong judgment
For Devant and Coudray.

Chorus: Repent in de tent
Pray night and day
Offer to the Lord every cent
Except for CEPEP pay.
Burn a bull on the altar
To please the Lord;
Once we do not falter
We will have honest State boards.

But I will not lose heart,
Crime can be solved in a snap;
If people doh work on the Sabbath
Nobody will get kidnap.

Chorus: Repent in the de tent
Pray night and day,
Follow the commandments
To stay out of a bullet’s way. 
De Lord say not to fornicate
So His law we better obey
To create a developed State
By 2020, or some day.

E-mail: kbaldeosingh@hotmail.com
Website: www.caribscape.com/baldeosingh