Lyr Add: Madame Khan (Calypso)

Subject: Lyr Add: MADAME KHAN (Calypso)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jun 11 - 08:13 PM

Lyr. Add: MADAME KHAN
Lord Caresser. 1930s

I never see a woman with a right hand so
One from she nail me to a door
I really thought I was dead
When a nail in the door went right through my head.

Chorus:-
Hold your hand, Madame Khan
You'll hear the same from woman and man
Talk about a woman bad like a crab
Your heart and soul all she would grab
Cut out your pocket and leave you to groan
Beat you with big stick, bottle and stone.

Not me in this kind of thing
Friend, I rather to walk about daily and sing
I could make my living in an easier way
Then to have a woman licking me every day

I never see another human like that
She boast how she big and strong and she fat
The female *Carnera a heavyweight
Breaking down the scale at ninety-eight.

Such a desperado can't tackle me
She'll be coming to meet her own destiny
Though if I slip I slide or lose my post
She'll give me all the blows I want, God knows.

She got the heart of an octopus
That nigger woman too dangerous
When she saw she couldn't put an end to my life
She even tackle me with an old grass knife.

From Linden Lewis, 2003, The Culture of Gender and Sexuality in the Caribbean, p. 156. Univ. Florida Press.

*Carnera was an Italian heavyweight who retired while still healthy and returned to Italy with the money he made.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Madame Khan (Calypso)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jun 11 - 08:26 PM

A rather unsatisfactory orchestral version is on youtube. The video starts out with pictures of East Indians but the calypso is about a black woman.
Google turns up a couple of sites with mp3 of Lord Caresser singing it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Madame Khan (Calypso)
From: GUEST,R. Little
Date: 13 Feb 24 - 06:36 PM

There is another musical version on You tube by the New Orleans band "Tuba Skinny"