I'm shocked I never realized this song is about Trinidadian prostitutes serving American soldiers...I first heard the Andrew Sisters version, but the calypso style of the original song is only present in Lord Invader's version. The Andrew Sisters probably didn't even know where Trinidad is. Gotta love that violin! Old calypso records, like much of the popular music elsewhere, tells us a lot about the history, popular culture, and worldview of the times. This song, for instance, comments on the presence of American soldiers in the Caribbean (likely during and after WWII) and their need for prostitutes being met by Trinidadian women, as well as the tale or joke of one Trinidadian man losing his wife to an American soldier! Calypsonians are like the blues singers of African America or the griots of West Africa, entertainers and singers who tell the story of their communities.
As this article explains from Slate, rum represents the Atlantic Slave Trade and the peculiar historical experiences of the Caribbean while coca cola symbolizes American empire and capitalism, which began to increasingly overtake British colonial authority in the Caribbean after the Spanish American War and various American occupations and quasi-colonial rule in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere. Thus, one could read Lord Invader's song as a critique of American military and economic intervention and dominance in the Caribbean, thereby fueling the growth in prostitution and unequal economic and social relations.
I must say, the last thing I ever expected was meeting a Norwegian familiar with the song who joined me in singing it. The world is a small place. A very, very small place.
"I must say, the last thing I ever expected was meeting a Norwegian familiar with the song who joined me in singing it. The world is a small place. A very, very small place." Eh, so where's the video, hahaha? Ti Paris for your listening pleasure:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjN1FB0ROjw&list=PL5D446713D5253BC1
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! I love the guitar in the first song. Quite beautiful. The links to the song are hyperlinks in the text. I love this style of Haitian music. Is it twoubadou or mereng?
Deletetwoubadou
Deletehttp://napoleonbonapartepodcast.com/2010/07/30/the-napoleon-bonaparte-podcast-56-nick-stark-on-haiti-part-two/
DeleteI really enjoyed your comments in this. I came upon it online while looking up Napoleon and slavery.
Thank you for your kind words. If you want a good laugh check out N. Stark's sophistries when I confront him on his blog.http://napoleonstark.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/my-review-of-c-l-r-james-the-black-jacobins-toussaint-louverture-and-the-san-domingo-revolution/#comments
DeleteHe's very uninformed from what I can tell. Sounds like he spent too much time obsessing over Napoleon and falling in love with him than conducting real research about other parts of the world and things going on.
DeleteHis ignorance of the history of this event isn't what offended me, that made him typical. I was offended by his stupidity. He is the type of idiot who refuses to see that societies gradually develop to higher stages. People like him believe that change from a slave system should take place in one step. That kind of miraculous transformation occurred no where that I know of. The USA is still grappling with the consequences of the forced labor (prison) system it created for blacks after the civil war and the emancipation of the slaves. I brought up the magna carta and the poor laws because labor has always been restricted even in the western democracies. The types of freedoms we enjoy in the west didn't come about until after world war 2. Hell, his ancestors were probably shipped to America as indentured servants because they belonged to the class of paupers and vagabonds. All that crap about how Haiti under Toussaint, Dessalines and Christophe was some kind of vast penal system strikes me as nonsense. 1) the people we are talking about had a long tradition of marronage 2) Where would they go if they quit the land? Higher up on the mountains where they could farm as they pleased.
ReplyDeleteTrue, that was one thing Marx and similar thinkers and philosophers got right, societies change gradually and progress to other stages, although of course our models and attempts to categorize are by their very nature reductive and incomplete or can blur the mixings of different social/economic systems.
DeleteI see what he's saying, but he does miss the 'big picture' in that the state and its various laws are always contradicted or affirmed by the governed in various ways. Thus, people continued to resist certain policies or laws that went against their personal and collective interests. You're right, Christophe's regime was probably significantly less authoritarian or repressive than tsarist Russia or medieval Europe, or even contemporary Britain, land of the free! I've read about impressment and systems of forced labor there, too.