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SING FOR THE LAND
By Black Stalin
Keep your party card, it not necessary!
I don't have to join no group to represent the country
I want to get it straight to my fellow Trinbagonian
I does sing for the land and then for the man
Because parties does form today,
The next day they gone down the drain
But my IOU for this country would always remain
For when Drake and Morgan landed here from Africa, brother
Is Trinidad and Tobago whey took the role as my mother.
Is Trinbago who give Stalin the privilege
Just to find out who I am after the Middle Passage
So it's my obligation to make sure the twin island
That how I meet it, I could leave it in a better condition
So then I can't wait on no PM, no Opposition, or no party
You see I got to do the little that I could do
And do it wholeheartedly for this country.
How could I sit down and wait on somebody
To jump on the TV and tell me to --------
Since I small, I hearing T&TEC load shedding
Everyday WASA people begging, water wasting
So when I lock off my water or I stop my current from wasting
It ent no T&TEC people or WASA that I helping
Because the first duty to my country is to make sure I always try
That none of them people ent run down the river dry, dry, dry.
Is Trinbago who give Stalin the privilege
Just to find back myself after the Middle Passage
So it's my obligation to make sure the twin island
That how I meet it, I could leave it in a better condition
So then I can't wait on no PM, no Opposition, or no party
You see I got to do the little that I could do
And do it wholeheartedly for this country.
If your party love the things whey I saying
We could put black force together and do a little protesting
But when the moment reach and we both start to disagree
To go we separate ways, we all must be free
Because I don't owe you nothing, it's the land I owe
And how you serving the land, I don't want to know
Because as a Trinbagonian, it's my duty to do my best
And as the old people say, "Do your best and forget the rest."
Is Trinbago who give Stalin the privilege
Just to find out who I am after the Middle Passage
So it's my obligation to make sure the twin island
That how I meet it, I could leave it in a better condition
So then I can't wait on no PM, no Opposition, or no party
You see I got to do the little that I could do
And do it wholeheartedly for the country.
I alone know how much this country do for me
So I alone could say how much I could do for the country
So how could any man or woman Trinidadian
Tell me how I must contribute to this land?
Because since I born, this country been taking care of me
And I making sure that I do the same carefully
Because this is just a warning to my fellow Trinbagonian
That I go lay my life down any time at all for the land.
Is Trinbago who give Stalin the privilege
Just to find out I'm an African after the Middle Passage
So it's my obligation to make sure the twin island
That how I meet it, I could leave it in a better condition
So then I can't wait on no PM, no Opposition, or no party
You see I got to do the little that I could do
And do it wholeheartedly for this country. One love!
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 so much for this offering, Black Stalin! Until I heard this song today, nothing, nothing, nothing was lifting the heaviness that I've been feeling. I've always shared your conviction but I allowed myself to become distracted for a while by human folly. Thank you, compatriot, from the bottom of my heart, for sending your light to find me.
"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
2 comments:
Reading your response to wsteffie's comments on your post "Jahaji Bhai" prompts me to add these two remarks:
What is or was the url of your other blog to which you referred? For whatever reason I was unaware of it yet it is precisely the reason I came across this blog in the first place. I was eagerly and frustratedly searching, as an expat, for a source of significant information and intelligent analysis of current affairs in Trinidad and Tobago. I had tried unsuccessfully to get together some expats to establish a blog about Trinidad and Tobago which would combine insights from within and without our country to fill what I saw as a void that needed to be filled. You can bet I would have been the fourth Trinbagonian avidly following your blog if I had had the good sense to find it. I can understand the pain and frustration that led you to suspend it, but I hope you resume it.
My second remark addresses the issue of race. The enlightened concept of the oneness of the human race and the adoption of better terminology associated with race that you envision may occur sooner than you think, notwithstanding the attempts of the far right to legislate us back into feudal times. The number of "interracial" families is growing very rapidly. The "mixtures" are much more complex and varied than the old "black and white". There are many families composed of three, four, five different ethnic backgrounds. If bigots have a hard time now trying to determine if a person is black or white or what degree of which, and how to stereotype such persons, they are going to go absolutely crazy when they have to figure out just two generations of families like mine. And we have lots of company.
Thanks for visiting Louis, and for your comment. Apologies for the delay with this reply. I've been taking a break and I feel much better as a result. I tend to get too emotionally involved in certain matters and I really have to learn how to keep my distance. About that other site - Guacara Dreamtime, I have reopened it and I hope to maintain the original focus. That blog was meant to focus on Trinbagonian First Nations but I started including a wider range of topics. Many of those posts have already been transferred to a new blog and I hope to open that soon. I will let you know when. Even if it is not open, I continue to write. Have you ever visited "Trinidad and Tobago News Blog"? I find that a very useful site. Also Jai Parasram's "Jyoti Communication" is a really consistent collector of news items relating to Trinbago. Apart from this, I found your idea for that blog very interesting. Please tell me more.
Your family is just like mine, Louis. People have tried over the years to pin us down and it is a source of laughter for us. We know a great deal about our ancestry but only four generations back. We only know a little about their situations before they arrived in Trinbago. There is a lot that we don't know and will never know, since the ancestors who had less material wealth never had the official records and journal entries, the photos and photos of painted portraits that were handed down to us by others. For a fact there are seven ethnicities from nine countries but because of the gaps in the tree we are always proud to add, "And that's just the ones we know about!"
Louis, when I think about how little time it took for them to mix up the callaloo that we are today, I can only conclude that our ancestors must have had open hearts and really twinkly eyes. LOL
Blessings to you and yours!
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