Take The Number [Song]

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TAKE THE NUMBER
By Scrunter
Arranged by Art De Coteau, 1979

I stand up and I hear my neighbour this morning
Giving she daughter a very strict warning
To go to school, my child, you got to travel far
If the bus break down and you taking a motor car
We hear one get rape and kill in the cane
Two days later a next one get rape again
Well, now I putting this thing in your head
So the police will get information if you ent dead.

Chorus:
Any time you hear that your school over
And you get a drop with a motor car
[Take the number] Carol [Take the number]
Whether is Mazda, Corolla Mark II
Darling, one thing I beg you to do
[Take the number] You hear? [Take the number]
Don't study colour, that could always change
Once you find the driver look strange
[Take the number] Carol [Take the number].

I wouldn't like nothing to happen to you
Because I don't know what I'll really do
Sacrificing to give you education
So that you will grow up to be something in time to come
Your Daddy dead and is me alone
After school, please try and find yourself home
You can't stay and see what's behind the wall
Because Hindu priest raping school children and all. [See note below]

Chorus:
So any time you hear that your school over
And you get a drop with a motor car
[Take the number] Carol [Take the number]
Whether is Mazda, Corolla Mark II
Darling, one thing I beg you to do
[Take the number] You hear? [Take the number]
Don't study colour, that could always change
Once you find the driver look strange
[Take the number] Carol [Take the number].

I hear my neighbour say, Girl, look your bus fare
Believe what I tell you and don't break stick in your ear
Don't mind how stupid my advice may sound
As a mother, I don't want to see you go wrong
Friend does carry you go, they don't bring you back
You know to yourself that this is a fact
I talking to you, you sucking your teeth
But is who in the kitchen does feel the heat.

Chorus:
So any time you hear that your school over
And you get a drop with a motor car
[Take the number] Carol [Take the number]
Whether is Mazda, Corolla Mark II
Darling, one thing I beg you to do
[Take the number] You hear? [Take the number]
Don't study colour, that could always change
Once you find the driver look strange
[Take the number] Carol [Take the number].

My child. Oh child! [Take the number, take the number]
My child. [Take the number, take the number]
Yes, child. [Take the number, take the number]
Oh, child. [Take the number, take the number]
Good child.

Note: "In 1980 the Hindu Vishwa Parsad successfully petitioned cabinet for the withdrawal of the line "Hindu priest raping school children and all" from Scrunter "Take the Number", on the grounds that the matter to which the calypso alluded was still sub judice, and that the line "tended to show Hindus in a bad light."
Source: The Political Calypso: True Opposition in Trinidad and Tobago, 1962-1987. By Louis Regis, Barbados: University of the West Indies, 1999. p. 197

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