Lyr Req: Old Time Cat o' Nine (Lord Invader)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Time Cat o' Nine (Lord Invader)
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 07:36 AM

I *am* planning to learn directly from calypsonains in Trinidad.. after I've done my last trial exam (tomorrow), revised in detail for the real HSC (in a couple months), and (hopefully) got into university to study ethnomusicology.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Time Cat o' Nine (Lord Invader)
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 05:19 PM

EDIT: *calypsonians*

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Time Cat o' Nine (Lord Invader)
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 05:32 PM

The theme of punishment is very common in Jamaican songs. I can't speak to Trini ones, but the comparison to Jamaica may be reasonable.

The "Judge Dread" series of songs (in Jamaican music) was about punishing rude bwoys (i.e. analogous to Teds) and very popular to this day. The rude bwoys were famously sentenced to 400 years and X number of lashings, and when the accused cried, they were told that "rude boys don't cry." They were also part of a dialogue in which others spoke to the social circumstances of the accused hooligans. Prince Buster was the main "judge", and Lee Perry was the apologist.

Lots of other songs have a religious tone, wherein the Divine is asked to whip/lick/burn/etc. the evil doers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Time Cat o' Nine (Lord Invader)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 05:50 PM

The University of the West Indies (Kingston Jamaica) offers a program in Heritage Studies.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Time Cat o' Nine (Lord Invader)
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 10:07 PM

James, do you sing this in a Trinidadian accent? I sing this song at home and I always sing it in a Trinidadian accent.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Time Cat o' Nine (Lord Invader)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:17 AM

I have to adopt an accent to some extent because of the idioms used (not so much in this song, but many songs have Caribbean phrases such as "me say" and so on).

This is problematical these days because it can be seen as offensive, and I don't want to offend anyone, already being a white English singer appropriating black music!

However, the calypsonians of the golden age sang in quite "westernised" accents anyway, to demonstrate their erudition, so I try to emulate them as much as possible. I probably sound pretty odd to a Trinidadian though.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Time Cat o' Nine (Lord Invader)
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 08:33 AM

Calypso has never been *exclusively* Black. One of the earliest calypsonians was a White Frenchman called Cedric Le Blanc, who sang in the 1800s-1900s, when calypsonians were known as chantwells. He was the composer of "Oh, Not A Cent", an English-language song and the subject of the thread Lyr Req: Oh, Not A Cent at the top of this page.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Time Cat o' Nine (Lord Invader)
From: James Fryer
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 08:42 AM

I am not aware of any white calypsonians operating now though.