By Mighty Sparrow
Everyday you read the paper
Somebody dead, they can't find the murderer
Everyday you read the paper
Somebody dead, they can't find the murderer
Everybody asking the same question
"Why it have so much ah crime in this island?"
If you really want to know what they fighting for
Some people have too much and some too poor...especially
The high cost of living, lord!
Higher than a mountain
People like me and you so
Have to stand up and watch the goods at Hi-Lo.
Just imagine you are not working
You have a wife and two children starving
But over by neighbour Chung Lee
No chick, no child, he pack up with money
A man like me will try to stick mih grind
But everybody cannot have the same mind
By this alone I want everybody to see
The majority of crime is through poverty...because
The high cost of living, lord!
Higher than a mountain
People like me and you so
Have to stand up and watch the goods at Hi-Lo.
Some people sleeping on the pavement
Some again, twenty-five apartment
Some working for two dollars a day
Some can't count their money when they get pay
The government have a right to see to this
Put a stopping to all this foolishness
See that a poor man get work, a good salary
To maintain himself and his family... especially nowadays
The high cost of living, lord!
Higher than a mountain
People like me and you so
Have to stand up and watch the goods at Hi-Lo.
Many days a man may be bawling
Wake up in the morning, he ent have a shilling
Perhaps his wife might have a baby
Sick in bed or as the case may be
It have a lot of people in that position T
hey are really in deep suffocation
If the authorities don't lend a helping hand
The poorer class will sure die from starvation...because
The high cost of living, murder!
Higher than a mountain
People like me and you so
Have to stand up and watch the goods at Hi-Lo.
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! .............................................................................................
A Note From The Gull
Thank you, Mighty Sparrow.
I read over at Ice Records that this was the Mighty Sparrow's first social commentary. How far have we come since that song was first sung fifty-three years ago? Hard times and good times come and they go and so do humans. Is that all there is? We just continue to be born to contribute to circumstances and to react to them whether positively or negatively?
Sometimes I think that our recorded histories, our grand summaries and declarations are just our field notes as we continue to observe and document our plight over time. We are not meant to use these to change ourselves or to figure out the code that holds the key to our evolution. Maybe there is no need for evolution. That's another fantasy perhaps? Maybe we are as good as we will ever be and ALL our troubles stem from our trying to outdo, to improve on NATURE.
"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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