TOO MUCH HOLIDAYS
By Lord Kitchener (1993)
Everyday is gossip, how de country hard
But I know what causing the hardship in Tobago and Trinidad
Everyday is gossip, how de country hard
But I know what causing the hardship in Tobago and Trinidad
They don’t even have a clue, they blind, they can’t see
The amount of revenue they lose annually
After considering, the grandmaster go let them know
One of the reasons why the country suffering so.
This is why the country suffering [Too much holidays]
We believe in too much skylarking [Too much holidays]
Holidays are really crippling [Too much holidays]
Plenty going out, nothing coming in [Too much holidays]
Too much holidays in a country [Too much holidays]
Signifies a poor economy [Too much holidays]
The economy must be falling [Too much holidays]
You paying people for not working [Too much holidays]
Take for instance England and the USA
Every man and woman have to work on a Whit Monday
All them other country looking for means and ways
The possibility to minimize on their holidays
A country that likes to laze, it poses a threat
The more public holidays, the poorer you get.
So when you really think of it, it may well be
Excessive holidays that destroying we economy.
McLeod say he want all he money [Too much holidays]
Holidays is no excuse for he [Too much holidays]
And if he eh get all he money [Too much holidays]
He intend to shut down the country [Too much holidays]
Garcia like a parrot making row [Too much holidays]
Say he want he money now for now [Too much holidays]
And if he eh get all he money [Too much holidays]
School children go pay the penalty [Too much holidays]
You can’t blame the PM or the President
For a foolish system which they cannot prevent
It is just a pity we must pay the cake
For those who previously made a sad mistake
Anyone can see it clear, to fete is we craze
Just imagine in one year, sixteen holidays
You can’t have your cake and eat it, the old people phrase
Is either your economy or your holidays.
When them other countries labouring [Too much holidays]
Trini by the sea holidaying [Too much holidays]
Fete in the morning, fete in the evening [Too much holidays]
Who cares how the country running [Too much holidays]
Ministers and all in the party [Too much holidays]
Forgetting 'bout the economy [Too much holidays]
But take a tip from the grandmaster [Too much holidays]
Holidays go bring we a pauper [Too much holidays]
Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance!
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A Note From The Gull
Grandmaster, I don’t know. I think that Trinis are on to a good thing. I am surprised that we haven’t experimented yet with a four-day work week for instance. And I am not talking about compressed work schedules where 40 hours are crammed into four days. I am saying that we should be working less hours. The truth is that if you add up all the time we spend making preparations for ourselves and others to accommodate our work schedules, the time we spend travelling to and from work, the times we are required to work overtime, the times when we take our work home, we realise that we actually surrender a great deal more than forty hours every week.
Who knows how or when they came up with the arbitary 40-hour week but if we stop and really think about it we might come to the conclusion that this is yet another unnecessary constraint that we’ve allowed others to place on us. As it is now, we’re harrassed, it is taking a toll on our physical and emotional health, we don’t have enough time to spend with our families and other people, to take up leisure and creative activities like hobbies, community activities or just to have down time to think and assess things. We are constantly on the run like rats in our wheels...but that is how the system likes us, too busy to think or too busy to notice that we are not thinking and too busy to do anything about it even when we do notice.
It's been so long that we have been lamenting the poor work ethic in Trinidad and Tobago. I'd be more interested in questioning how and why we work and what it is we are working at? Could it be that there is a mismatch between the natural and best inclinations of our people and the unyielding round holes into which our protesting square-peg selves are being hammered?
"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.
Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.
Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare
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