Highly rhythmic, jaunty calypso music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early 1800s, and spread to the rest of the Caribbean Antilles, has a message of moral import at Yuletide. Such is the conclusion to be drawn from entertaining calypso melodies and those in allied styles that comment upon both delights and woes at the end of the year.
Starting in the 1920s, Bertie Moore, a Trinidadian who would later emigrate to London, performed under the stage name of Lord Beginner. He had a hit with an anthem warning against festive overindulgence: “Christmas Morning the Rum Had Me Yawning” (1939).
Two years earlier, a rival star, Philip Garcia, better known as Lord Executor, had recorded the ostensibly cheery “Christmas Is a Joyful Day”. The lyrics mention a “cantaway” or rum-based drink laced with an incapacitating agent, served to holiday visitors in Trinidad who are too demanding or otherwise unwelcome. Of one ne’erdowell, Lord Executor sang: “He never work neither night nor day / So then I’ll give him a cantaway / On Christmas Day.”
Relish in meting out informal justice on the day of the Lord’s birth is part of the calypso spirit and allied musical styles. Indeed, “Father Christmas” (1959) by The Mighty Spoiler reports that he awoke on Christmas morning to find what Santa had brought him: legal sanctions for nonpayment of alimony. “Some police in short pants, with a warrant for me for wife maintenance…oh Lord!”
Less punitively, a later opus, “Bring de Scotch for Christmas” (1966), offered advice on how to deal with friends and neighbours who were a bit too demanding. It was sung by Aldwyn Roberts (Lord Kitchener). In economically depressed communities, offering seasonal hospitality to visitors created concern, especially if they arrived empty-handed, but expected to be regaled.
Irwin Reyes, a calypsonian known as Mighty Scrunter, attracted attention with his 1990 song, “Piece Ah Pork”. It blended musical approaches that included an updated form of calypso called soca, as well as the Christmas-themed genre parang, a form of wassailing originally imported from Venezuela.
As European folklorists explain, the house visiting wassail on Twelfth Night involved door-to-door singing and accepting gifts in exchange for a guzzle from the wassail bowl. In centuries past, this tradition in the UK and elsewhere would sometimes end in a fracas, as interlopers would occupy the homes of neighbours, demanding free food and drink by threatening to vandalise the premises.
If not quite attaining this level of impending violence, the so-called soca parang “Piece Ah Pork” shows the singer to be a finicky freeloader. He rejects such local delicacies as pigeon stew, manicou (made by cooking an opossum), callaloo (a vegetable stew made with taro leaves), and insists on ham.
The calypsonian pleads: “I hope Santa bring me exactly what I have in mind / I want a piece ah pork for me Christmas.”
The role of Father Christmas in all these goings-on is likewise strong-willed and multifaceted. A Falstaffian celebrant, he is described as lovelorn in “Santa Looking For a Wife” (1992) by Bindley Benjamin.
The concept of an already extant Mrs Claus being evidently unfamiliar in the Antilles, Santa must find a helpmeet since he is “gettin’ down in age”. Fortunately, he has an embarrassment of choice due to “so much ah nice woman throughout de Caribbean”.
This echoes an earlier attempt to reward Saint Nick for his labours as heard in “A Party for Santa Claus” (1973) by the calypsonian Lord Nelson, a pioneer of soca music, successfully blending soul and calypso. Born Robert Nelson, he proposed that it was time to help Santa “trade in the old sled and the reindeer / For a big car and a chauffeur”.
Listeners were duly urged to “Get him an apartment with modern equipment / A maid and a butler – let’s show our love / For dear old Santa Claus". In a similar spirit of seasonal generosity, the song freely samples several measures from the US pop hit “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” as well as the traditional “Jingle Bells”.
In a less raucous vein, the sentimental “Tell Santa Claus” (1961) featured Randolph Nathaniel (Nap) Hepburn explaining how, through Christmas charity, he assisted an impoverished mother and child. On Christmas Eve, Nap overheard a shoeless boy asking his mother to tell Santa to bring a trumpet and small accordion to cure his loneliness. The singer reacted by noting down the address and duly brought the instruments as a treat for the aspiring young musician.
Along these lines, the soca parang “It’s Christmas Again” (2009) by Timothy Watkins (Baron) observes with social consciousness that Christmas “Is the only time of the year / The rich does show the poor that they care".
An even earlier calypso with a comparably serious theme was “Drink-a-Rum” (1954) by Lord Kitchener. An immigrant to the UK feeling homesick during the holidays issues an invitation to his mama to visit him in “the mother country”.
Among the drinks cited to lure the apparently sodden materfamilias are whisky, gin, brandy and ponche crema, a cream-based Christmastime liqueur originating in Venezuela with some parallels to advocaat.
Perhaps presuming that his mother will be unable to join the celebrations, the singer paints a verbal picture of what will occur: “On Christmas Day, when Big Ben alarm six thirty / We are underway to begin this festivity / Later in the evening, we passing through Piccadilly / Everybody dancing and singing the same melody.”
Similar jubilation is foreseen in “De Paint Brush” (1993) by Kenwrick Joseph (Kenny J) on the theme of a quasi-purifying sense of renewal in sprucing up a dwelling in anticipation of Christmas visitors. A paint brush lent to a neighbour must be reclaimed.
No less earnest is an urgently insistent song, “Put Jesus in Your Christmas” (2009) by Edwin Ayoung, known as Crazy, another Trinidadian calypsonian. Reminding listeners that Christ “came down here to save us from wickedness and chaos”, the song is more mellifluous than others, as well as containing more strident musical exhortations to repent and otherwise abandon the usual overindulgence of the season.
A more ambivalent spirit is perceived in “Christmas is Yours, Christmas is Mine” (1981), sung by Willard Harris (Lord Relator). He acknowledges that Christmas brings “a feeling of joy, it’s so divine / So let us all rejoice and let the voices sing, / ‘Glory to the newborn King!’” Yet ambient financial pressures and domestic squabbles caused by his forgetting to buy cooking ingredients for his wife puts a damper on the seasonal delight:
“The usual quarrel when he forget to buy the sorrel…Daddy money short, he in a real jam, we ain’t sure if we eating ham.”
Despite all the anxieties and potential for discord, Christmas in Trinidadian music is a time of social harmony. In “Make a Friend For Christmas” (1983), Lord Relator pooh-poohs an economic recession: “You don’t need no big set of money / to spend a Christmas and be happy / Make a new friend for de Christmas this year.”
It’s decent year-round advice, as well.
<em>(Photo: iStock.)</em>
<strong><strong>This article appears in the special December/January 2024 double edition of the <em>Catholic Herald</em>. To subscribe to our award-winning, thought-provoking magazine and have independent, high-calibre, counter-cultural and orthodox Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/subscribe/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">HERE</mark></a></strong></strong>.
