Where Is Our Calypso Going? [Song]

Uploaded by kaiso22WHERE IS OUR CALYPSO GOING?
By Lord Shorty

I would really like to know what is our musical culture?
Is it calypso or is it soul music from America?
I ask this because I know foreign music has take over my country,
And my calypso is being suppressed and not used to uplift my dignity.
Some say our music is calypso but we ent sure
Because if this was really so,
Of our calypsonians and calypso we should know more
How terrible, of one's culture to know so little.

Chorus:
So I'm asking, Where is our dignity? Oh lord, where is our pride?
Perhaps it leave the country and gone for a ride
Who was Lord Executor? No one know the answer.
Yet everyone of us here know the life story of Louis Armstrong Satchmo.

A radio announcer say, "Calypso is loved only by the old.
The youths of today appreciate no other music but soul."
But I know that this could not be so, how can his conception be the truth,
When our calypso is being played few and far between like Grandma tooth?
Even our Prime Minister quoting foreign songs
He said, "I want to retire. Like a bridge over troubled water,
I am going to lay me down."
Man that ent fair, he should say, "Let me get to hell outta here!"

Chorus:
It makes me wonder, Where is our dignity? Oh lord, where is our pride?
Why must we appreciate more the things from outside?
Foreign music is being entertained, my calypso is going down the drain
We speak of cultural consciousness and they themself who preach, doing stupidness.

Calypso music is sweet and lyrically soul expression
This rhythmic beat is undoubtedly truly Trinidadian
But we allow other countries to claim our calypso as theirs
The authorities have simply neglected our art down through the years
Go to Jamaica, you would hear reggae from dawn til dawn
I don't blame them in any way, I only hope that some good day
We too will catch on
And leave foreign things alone and appreciate what's our own.

Chorus:
Please tell me, Where is our dignity? Oh lord, where is our pride?
Why must we appreciate more the things from outside?
It is time that we should learn, what belongs to us, we should show concern
Every country thinks of their own, so to Trinidadians this I will condone.

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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"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