Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution & Morwen's verses

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 08:54 PM

And here'sa thread with a link to an acapella version of "Jean and Dinah" sung by me.

BTW that rewrite of parts of Jean and Dinah was to demonstrate that some of the songs can be adapted to fit different situations. This probably has nothing to do with anything, but I've always found it an interesting fact, since starting this thread that Sparrow's song was written the same year as the landing of the Granma.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 08:44 PM

James! I was waiting for you to post in here. My family owns a guitar, but I've never tried to play it.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: James Fryer
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 12:14 PM

I like to perform the Invader song, but have always found it a bit short on lyrics, so your extra verses are very useful! Thanks.

BTW it is a very simple song to play on guitar (Em/B7 only) so assuming you play guitar you could provide your own accompaniment?

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 07:37 AM

And also @Dick: Thanks.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 07:35 AM

Looking at Amos' lyrics always gives me the urge to laugh. Black humour is one of my favourite types of humour.
That reminds me: I could probably rewrite "Jean and Dinah" like this:

Well the girls in town, they all know,
There's no more dollars from the gringos,
They've defeated the enemy,
And finally our country is free
   
Now you see them girls park up in town,
In for a peso or in for a pound
Believe me, no competition for so,
Everything's great for the Cubano.

So when you bounce up

Jean and Dinah, Rosita and Clementina,
Round the corner posin,
Bet your life is somethin they sellin,
And if you catch 'em broken,
You can get 'em all for nothin,
Don't make no row,
Yankees gone and Castro take over now.


Note: There were loads of Afro-Caribbean immigrants from neighbouring countries (particularly Jamaica) in Cuba. Rita Marley (Bob's wife) was born in Santiago to Jamaican immigrant parents. A lot of the children in these families were sent to boarding school "back home" when they were old enough, apparently.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 10:12 AM

Thanks for looking, Dick. I couldn't locate it either.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 08:33 AM

Refresh. What's the origin of the song Amos quotes?

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 07:15 PM

Refresh.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 12:49 AM

Amos: That song is funny in a black humour kind of way :). Who wrote it?

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Aug 12 - 05:48 PM

Sorry, but the song did not get a credit line in the movie.It was an interesting movie--quite powerful for its time (John Garfield, Jennifer Jones, Gilbert Roland---late 40s.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Aug 12 - 10:55 AM

While not a calypso--it borrows the Spanish-Mexican melody of Coplas the following was written shortly after the Cuban revolution, in the late 50's I think:


My name, senor, is Fidel Castro
I fought to set my couyntry free!
Thereby winning gtlory,
For Cuba, God
And me

AY yi yi
yi yi yi
yi yi yi yi!

The former government was evil!
Corruption in every institution!
Now we have outlawed gambling,
And put a tax on prostitution!

Come to our romantic island
In the middle of the ocean!
Watch us shoot counter-revolutionaries
And solve the population explosion!

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 27 Aug 12 - 04:55 AM

Dick: Please do it. I want to know.

BTW, I get very irritated by people who misunderstand the meaning of R&CC. I mean, it's about wartime prostitution. Oh yeah, that's so upbeat. To be fair, very few people have heard the original version, which ends with a story about a man who goes "staring mad" after his wife runs off with an American soldier. .
The phrase "overpaid, oversexed and over here" probably summed up Trinidadian men's feelings at the time.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Aug 12 - 12:37 AM

Dunno who wrote it. I'll check and see if I can find movie credits.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 10:04 PM

I will, next time he pops in. Invader rarely wrote his own melodies, but the important thing is the lyrics, not the melodies (Rum and Coca-Cola is memorable because of the lyrics. Unfortunately, it has a huge misaimed fandom.)

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 09:36 PM

No idea who wrote the lyrics. You'll have to ask Dick about that, ME1.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 09:30 PM

Addition to 9.20 post: Even to Belgium, Germany and Mexico. Also, Tony, is your username "Tony"?

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 09:24 PM

And 999: Thanks for the explanation. Who wrote the song Dick quotes?

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 09:20 PM

Arkansas Crisis. , about the Little Rock Nine. He was actually in England and heard about the incident in the news. (Actually he may have been in England when he wrote the song in the OP, too. He went everywhere.)

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 09:14 PM

Tony: Invader was in America, I believe, when he wrote this song. He often wrote songs about the things that were happening around him. For example, the

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 08:20 PM

By the way, I like your added verses. They fit in perfectly.
And here's another Cuban song about Castro: Y en eso llego Fidel

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 08:04 PM

Morwen, do you really mean calypsos? Those were usually limited to political events in Trinidad. I'm surprised that Lord Invader would say anything about Castro. But if you mean Caribbean folk music in general, I'm sure there's tons of it, both for and against Castro. For example, Gracias Fidel.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 06:31 PM

That was me.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 06:31 PM

The Revolution of 1933 in Cuba. History here.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 06:24 PM

We Were Strangers was about Cuba--as much as Hollywood movies are about anything.

"We Were Strangers (1949)

China Valdes joins the Cuban underground after her brother is killed by the chief of the secret police, Ariete. She meets and falls in love with American expatriate Tony Fenner. Tony develops a plan to tunnel under the city's cemetery to a plot owned by a high official, assassinate him, and blow up the whole Cuban hierarchy at the ensuing state funeral. Together with a band of dedicated revolutionaries, they begin digging.

Written by Jim Beaver "

The song therefore was about what the protagonists were doing to bring down a government they found to be oppressive.

As an aside, Greenhaus doesn't often get it wrong, FYI.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 05:38 PM

but that's not about Cuba...

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 10:34 AM

In the movie "We Were Strangers"--the only Hollywood film I can recall celebrating a Communist revolution---there's the calypso:

In nineteen hundred and thirty three
Tony Fenner he say to me
Take up your shovel and your pick
And strike a blow for liberty

For what is wrong and what is right
Will be decided by dynamite
That is why he say to me
We dig all day, we dig all night.

In nineteen hundred and thirty three
Tony Fenner he died for me
Now I have one brother less
But I have my liberty

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 07:42 AM

Because I'd also like opinions on my verses.

Subject: RE: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 07:35 AM

Could a moderator please delete the question mark to the title and add "and Morwen's verses" to it? Thanks.

Subject: Calypsos on the Cuban Revolution?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 07:30 AM

Fidel Castro say no,
Fidel Castro say no to Batista,
Fidel Castro say no.

"But Castro, you ought to surrender."
Fidel Castro say no. (Whee!)
He also kept up with no help from America,
Fidel Castro say no.

Castro you know I's Lord Invader,
Fidel Castro say no.
Now that you are the Controller of Cuba,
Fidel Castro say no, whee!

He said his mind is bent on democracy,
Fidel Castro say no.
Castro say he will never surrender,
Fidel Castro say no.
You know he'll make a sad Batista,
Fidel Castro say no.
But Castro remember I's Lord Invader,
Fidel Castro say no.

Go rescue me when I come over to Cuba,
Fidel Castro say no.
Because I am a Calypso singer,
Fidel Castro say no,

In Cuba it is a real Bacchanal,
Fidel Castro say no.
All those warmongers on trial,
Fidel Castro say no,
What's more you cannot capture Invader,
Fidel Castro say no,
Because I am not a native of Cuba,
Fidel Castro say no,
Lord Invader is a Calypso singer,
Fidel Castro say no, whee!

But Fidel Castro say no to Great Britain,
Fidel Castro say no,
He also make America a friend,
Fidel Castro say no,
He made up his mind and his own plan,
Fidel Castro say no, whee!

-Lord Invader, 1959

Does anyone know of any calypsos (other than the one above by Invader) about the Cuban Revolution? Or is that one, called "Fidel Castro", the only one in existence?

(Incidentally, here's two extra verses I just made up to the song. If I ever get the CD and learn the song (I'll have to figure out how to make MIDIS from CD tracks, then make the MIDI longer so I can add my verses):

Fidel Castro sail from Mexico,
Fidel Castro say no!
He come on the boat Granma,
Fidel Castro say no!
Castro land with Che Guevara,
Fidel Castro say no,

Army surrender to guerilla,
Fidel Castro say no,
Now Castro leader of Cuba,
Fidel Castro say no.