Win­ford James

The Ex­plain­er–le­gal name: Win­ston Hen­ry–has passed on to The Great Be­yond, leav­ing us a trea­sure trove of ca­lyp­soes. Three of them that I par­tic­u­lar­ly love are Lor­raine, Ras­ta Chick, and Kicksin in Par­lia­ment and have in fact turned out to be clas­sics. Lor­raine is a nar­ra­tive par­ty ca­lyp­so about a Car­ni­val-lov­ing Tri­ni in win­try New York who needs to es­cape the bit­ing cold of the city to the heat of Port-of-Spain where mer­ry-mak­ing mu­sic pro­vid­ed by ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, steel­bands, and brass bands are wait­ing to be en­joyed. Ras­ta Chick is an­oth­er nar­ra­tive par­ty ca­lyp­so in which a fe­male par­ty-go­er fends off the un­in­vit­ed sex­u­al at­ten­tions of the ca­lyp­son­ian. And Kicksin in Par­lia­ment is a po­lit­i­cal ca­lyp­so that sat­i­rizes be­hav­iours by law­mak­ers in our Par­lia­ment that cheap­en the pur­pose of the Hous­es.

Many moons ago when I was a sec­ondary school­teacher, I used ca­lyp­sos to teach both Eng­lish gram­mar and Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture, and I had great fun do­ing so. I re­mem­ber us­ing Ras­ta Chick to teach the lit­er­ary de­vice known as pun and dou­ble en­ten­dre, which Ex­plain­er em­ployed to put across a risqué mean­ing in a word that was ca­pa­ble of that mean­ing as well as one that wouldn’t trou­ble ei­ther the self-right­eous or the right­eous. Af­ter de­ter­min­ing that the tar­get word was ‘ras’, the stu­dents had to ad­duce the clues that showed that Ex­plain­er’s mean­ing was not hair­style but the but­tocks.

The three songs are quite melod­ic, but the most car­ni­va­lesque is, for me and, ap­par­ent­ly, most ca­lyp­so lovers, Lor­raine. It was pro­duced in 1982 and, in that year and over the years, un­der­went lyri­cal changes. In 2005, it was, both lyri­cal­ly and mu­si­cal­ly, re­made in a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Ex­plain­er and so­ca artist Bun­ji Gar­lin, which I find to be pleas­ing­ly en­er­getic. In ho­n­our of Ex­plain­er, I of­fer an analy­sis of it be­low.

I be­gin with the cho­rus, which al­so ex­pe­ri­enced small lyri­cal changes:

Cho­rus

Lor­raine, doh cry. Ah leav­ing.

Ah cyar miss dis jam­min

wit all dem steel­ban beat­in

an woman back­groun shakin.

If yuh doh fight yuh ba­by

den yu could come an join me

in­side Catel­li Steel­ban

jam­min on some man woman!

Ex­plain­er is a Tri­ni mi­grant in New York and he is leav­ing his woman to go back home to Trinidad to par­tic­i­pate in the Car­ni­val, draw­ing her tears. He is a steel­band fan who can­not miss the cel­e­bra­tions, es­pe­cial­ly the mu­sic of Catel­li All Stars, and the cor­po­re­al gy­ra­tions, ma­nip­u­la­tions, and ma­noeu­vrings of the women. He tells her she’s free to join him once she does not ‘fight’ him or ques­tion his cel­e­bra­to­ry dance with oth­er women, cap­tured in that beau­ti­ful­ly icon­o­clas­tic phrase ‘jam­min on some man woman’.

Who is this Lor­raine, whom Ex­plain­er keeps call­ing ‘Lor­ren’? An­oth­er Tri­ni mi­grant or, more cred­i­bly, an Amer­i­can woman giv­en the cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences be­tween him and her that the cho­rus, sung some nine times, at­tempts to high­light? Ex­plain­er cap­tures the ap­peal of Car­ni­val, and par­tic­u­lar­ly steel­band mu­sic, by fo­cus­ing on a teary-eyed out­sider who can­not stop her Car­ni­val-lov­ing man from leav­ing her in the cold.

In the ver­sion of the ca­lyp­so I am us­ing, there are three long stan­zas. Stan­za one in­tro­duces the Car­ni­val en­vi­ron­ment in Trinidad: sun­shine, pan, the brass bands, and con­trasts it with the cold of Brook­lyn:

Stan­za 1

Lor­raine, yuh bet­ter wake up.

I need a jet plane

to take me non­stop.

Ah cyar stay

in New York City

when dere is sun­shine and pan

in my coun­try.

Hm­mm!

Li­ons is de place with de jam­min

with Kalyan an Char­lie’s Roots splashin.

Every­one hap­py par­tyin

an am freezin

in Brook­lyn.

Stan­za two con­tin­ues the con­trast be­tween the cold of New York and the wel­come heat and fun of Port-of-Spain, and it brings in his friends and their prepa­ra­tions for J’Ou­vert.

Stan­za 2

Lor­raine! Girl, take it easy.

I don’t mean

to hurt you, ba­by!

Di cold­ness

makin me shiv­er

an back home

it hot like fire.

Dat is why I takin a jet plane

to take me to Port of Spain.

Dere all

my friends are wait­in

preparin

for J’ou­vert mornin.

Stan­za three gives us more of the same: Ex­plain­er can­not be con­vinced to stay; and his in­vi­ta­tion to Lor­raine to quick­ly book a flight to Port-of-Spain if she feels lone­ly. But he adds a de­scrip­tion of her that makes us un­sure of her iden­ti­ty: ‘an mas fever vi­brat­ing yuh body’. How can that be if she is Amer­i­can?

Stan­za 3

Babe

my mind is made up.

Air­port Kennedy

would be my next stop.

Don’t cry an try to con­vince me

’cause mi suit­case

done pack al­ready.

An if yu start

feel­in lone­ly

an mas fever vi­bratin yuh body

just make a

quick reser­va­tion

an touch dong in di land of steel­ban.

They called him ‘the mes­sen­ger’ and some hold the con­vic­tion to this day he should have won the Monar­chy at least once. But he was nev­er a great show­man. He had a sweet voice and lyrics that were very good with­out be­ing spe­cial.

But there is no deny­ing that he brought us much mu­si­cal joy Car­ni­val af­ter Car­ni­val.