Raymond "Atilla the Hun" Quevedo (1892-1962) served as a member of the Legislative Council of Trinidad and Tobago in the 1950s. He received that Public Service Medal of Merit Gold, posthumously in 1972 for Public Service and Calypso. His calypso Graf Zeppelin is regarded as a calypso classic.
THE DIRIGIBLE GRAF ZEPPELIN
On the early morning of October 22, 1933, the dirigible airship, Graf Zeppelin, on its way from South America to Germany, via the Chicago World's fair, flew over Trinidad. Large crowds were up to see the spectacle of this gigantic machine.
It entered our airspace from the south-east over Mayaro diagonally across the country to Port-of-Spain, at times flying very low and dropping to 200 feet when it got to Port-of-Spain allowing people to get an up close and personal view of this spectacular flying wonder, some 776 ft long. "The pilot and the sailors and the passengers were seen...waving little flags which they had heralding their visit to Trinidad."
Another interesting fact of this episode is that Mikey Cipriani, sportsman extraordinaire and pilot, flew his plane, the Hummingbird to accompany the dirigible into the Port-of-Spain area. Eye witness reports state that Cipriani's plane was like a mosquito circling a whale, what an image!
The year 1934 was also a significant year for the art form as it was when two of our top calypsonians, Lion and Atilla, journeyed to the USA to record their works. This signaled a new era in the evolution of this relatively new genre of song as Atilla's Graf Zeppelin and Lion's Ugly Woman captured the attention and imagination of the uninitiated such as stars like Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee. It was clearly a different era as shown by the use of the word "coolie" which was used without fear at the time.
The lack of sensitivity as to what was politically correct is also seen by the reference to the "big, fat woman" in the final verse.
Graf Zepelin by atilla the hun (1934)
Sing along via You Tube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-xcUzC0LXM
One Sunday morning I chanced to hear
A rumbling and a tumbling in the atmosphere
One Sunday morning I chanced to hear
A rumbling and a tumbling in the atmosphere
I ran to stare, people were flocking everywhere
Gesticulating and gazing and pointing in the air
It was the Graf Zeppelin which had come to pay a visit to Trinidad.
I gazed at the Zeppelin contemplatively
And marveled at man's ingenuity
The whirring of the engines were all I heard
As it floated in the air like some giant bird
And in between as the mighty airship gleamed
The pilot and the sailors and the passengers were seen
They were waving little flags which they had heralding their visit to Trinidad.
I gazed and the knowledge came back to me
How wonderful the work of man can be
To see that huge object in the air
Maintaining perfect equilibrium in the atmosphere
Wonderfully, beautifully, gloriously
Decidedly defying all the laws of gravity
Was the Graf Zeppelin which had come to pay a visit to Trinidad.
As I gazed at the Zeppelin something touched my hand
I turned and saw an old, decrepit coolie man
He said to me pointing at the Zeppelin
"Massa, can you tell am what is that thing?
Me feel to bawl, for me can't understand at all
He have nothing hold him up dey and still he never fall."
He was speaking of the Zeppelin that had come to pay a visit to Trinidad.
The visit of the Zeppelin will ever be
Indelibly impressed in my memory
Such a sight I'd never seen before
I gazed at it in consternation and awe
I chanced to hear a big, fat woman said, "Me dear!
Not for a million dollars I wouldn't go up in the air!
They may talk about modernity
But I think that the ground good enough for me."
