Origins: Small Island

Subject: RE: Origins: Small Island
From: GUEST,Lade
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 10:06 PM

Thanks Terri! (and Kent Davis). So good to know I'm not/we're not crazy. I really think its the same song - and from the same elementary school songbook! I do remember it had more than one verse, looks like you two remember the same one and I remember the one about coming to "eat all my food". I'm in DC - and have a reader card at the Library of Congress. Will try to visit/look there this week - or next and post any feedback.

Subject: RE: Origins: Small Island
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 09:28 PM

Like so many others on this thread, I learned the song in music class in perhaps the second or third grade (mid-late 1970s, Madison Heights, Michigan). I can recall the melody clearly, and the verse was:

Baijun boy, go back to your borning country
Small island boy, go back to your borning country
You come from Antigua with your foot full of chigger
Bring your guitar to sing to my mother
Baijun boy, go back to your borning country

I seem to recall that the spelling in the grade-school songbook was 'Baijun', perhaps to help with pronunciation.

I play guitar and could notate some of the chord changes from memory, but I don't read music well and, therefore, could not provide expert notation. The cadence was:

Baijun boy______ go back to your bor_NING_coun_TRY
Small island boy______ go back to your bor_NING_coun_TRY

Dan Reynolds

Subject: RE: Origins: Small Island
From: GUEST,Geoff
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 03:38 AM

I have a Rounder CD 1054, Calypso Breakaway, which has lyrics and titles for 20 tracks - and then has 4 more unlisted, of which Small island is one. So I don't know who its by, but the words are different from the above. Curiously another unlisted track is calling for West Indies confederation ...

Subject: RE: Origins: Small Island
From: Gda Music
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 03:22 PM

I have ROUNDER 1054 (cassette) listing 20 titles (possibly as the CD?)
The following 4 DECCA may just be those "bonus" tracks referred to?

*Small Island* - Invader -          DECCA M30732 - US Issue No. 34002
*Carenage Water* - Invader -       DECCA M30732 - US Issue No. 34005
*Dock Site Baby* - Invader -       DECCA M30731 - US Issue No. 34002
*The Soldiers Came & Broke Up My Life* - Invader

DECCA UK M30700 Series
All 4 Recorded with Lionel Belasco and his Orchestra in NY 21/5/45.

as listed West Indian Gramophone Records in Britain: 1927-1950
John Cowley
Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations
University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL   (February 1985)

GJ

Subject: RE: Origins: Small Island
From: GUEST,Anne
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 08:09 PM

I have been trying to find the lyrics to that song,I thought it was called Baijan Boy, for any years. Don't ask me why. But I also learned it in grade school, where nearly every one seems to have. The song just keeps popping into my head for no known reason and it drives me crazy. It seems to be the same for several others. Guess it doesn't want to be forgotten.

Subject: RE: Origins: Small Island
From: GUEST,Ellemir
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 12:14 AM

I also learned it in elementary school, in Winnetka, Illinois c. 1963. It must have been in one of our songbooks.
Baijan boy, go back to your born-in country.
Small island boy, go back to your born-in country.
You come to my house and eat-a my food
And leave this old man in a very bad mood ...
I still remember the melody.

Subject: RE: Origins: Small Island
From: GUEST,Guest: cathio
Date: 18 May 17 - 12:26 PM

I learned this song in 1964 in my 7th grade music class at O. A. Peters Intermediate School, in Garden Grove, CA. The song haunts me because no one I know has ever heard of it. It was called Baijun Boy and it was catchy and fun. Since Calypso music was very popular in the 60s, it was our favorite song to sing. The lyrics were pretty much those posted by Terri M. I would love to hear it again, or at least find a copy of it from the old song book.

Subject: RE: Origins: Small Island
From: GUEST,GUEST: Michele
Date: 01 Sep 22 - 03:44 PM

I still own and play this album, which was my father's. I can't find these songs anywhere else on the internet. The version of Choucounne on Calypso Carnival is beautiful and unique.

Subject: RE: Origins: Small Island
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 01 Sep 22 - 07:53 PM

fyi: Lyr Req: Choucoune

RE the Columbia release: "Small Island - New Words and Music by S.C. Patterson (Based on a Traditional Theme)"

Samuel C. Patterson was a Jamaican ex-pat and the husband of Martiniquean ex-pat Massie Patterson. Massie co-authored Calypso Songs with Lionel Belasco in 1943. They were the ultimate source of the Andrews Sisters Rum & Coca-Cola kerfluffle. Irene Lusan, we think, was one of Massie Patterson's Calypso Carousel singer/dancers. Afaik, nobody ever figured out who Columbia Record's “Lord Zebedee” was, not a card-carrying calypsonian under that name though.

And now you see them all over Lenox Avenue
aka: Malcolm X Boulevard; the main north–south thoroughfare through Harlem.

And some of the men they are great big number kings.
Stephanie St. Clair's minions.

Lyrics can be found in: The Calypso Carnival - Ten Exciting Authentic Calypsos, SU-55-23, ©1957, Ludlow Music, Inc. New York, N.Y., Selling Agent Hansen Publications, Inc. 119 West 57th Street New York 19, N.Y.

Subject: RE: Origins: Small Island
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 01 Sep 22 - 07:56 PM

fwiw: Bajan is not just “Barbadian.” It's English from Barbados by way the Carolinas (North American,) so major issues with the “r” sound (rhoticity;) twoubadou for troubadour &c. Bajan Creole is one of the few English based island creole languages. Weirdly, when writing things down, folks switch to regular old Oxford English.

The Duke & Lord confusion usually stems from:
Small Island, Decca 30732, 10-in. 1945, New York, vocals by Rupert Grant (Lord Invader) w/Lionel Belasco & His Orchestra. Written and performed by Grant.
Small Island, Disc 628, 10-in, recorded 1946, New York, vocals by Duke of Iron (Cecil Anderson) w/Felix and His Internationals. Written by Grant, performed by Anderson.

There are dozens of published versions and claims for Small Island. Nina & Frederik even throw in Moscow, Castro & Cuba, but I've never been able to locate the later North American school songbook everybody seems to remember.