Sedition [Song]

Listen to The Mighty Sparrow's "Sedition" courtesy we7.
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SEDITION
By Mighty Sparrow
Album: The Many Moods Of Sparrow, 1967

Oy, you better put your tail between your leg and play it cool
'Cause anything you say we going to call it ridicule
The laws must change up, yes,
But lord, this one too fierce.
And whey ah talking 'bout?
Sedition, careful, careful how you talking...hey
Sedition, careful, careful whey you walking
Plain gesticulation is straight apprehension
In police detention charged with sedition.
I want to hear...

No, don't create no damn ---- control posse in here
Oh yes, the law is now in force so tell all militants beware.
Hasty laws create disharmony and hate
So what I mean?
Sedition, careful, careful how you talking... hey hey!
Sedition, careful, careful whey you walking
Incompetent idiots have genuine patriots
Always under escort in the sedition court.

The people of a country shouldn't 'fraid to talk their mind
If you guilty here is straight to jail without a fine
Betrayal of the people's trust, to me is much more dangerous
Than what they talking 'bout.
Sedition, careful, careful how you talking...hey hey!
Sedition, careful, careful whey you walking
Your right or your left hand, raise it, is straight apprehension
In police detention charged with sedition.

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


Thank you, Mighty Sparrow. Honestly, this calypso just gives me the chills. There is a thin line [that can be deliberately blurred when it is convenient] between censorship/erosion of freedoms and sedition laws. This calypso was Sparrow's protesting of the Sedition Act and he was not the only calypsonian to address this situation. Others included Kitchener's 1973 "No Freedom" and Chalkdust's 1972 "Ah Fraid Karl" and "Who Next?" What happens when the state is a monster which does or does not have popular support and proceeds to use these laws for its own self-preservation against the challenges of "genuine patriots"?

Here is the definition of what does and does not constitute "sedition" in our country according to the Sedition Act 11:04
3. (1) A seditious intention is an intention—

(a) to bring into hatred or contempt, or to excite disaffection against Government or the Constitution as by law established or the House of Representatives or the Senate or the administration of justice;

(b) to excite any person to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, to procure the alteration of any matter in the State by law established;

(c) to raise discontent or disaffection amongst inhabitants of Trinidad and Tobago;

(d) to engender or promote—
(i) feelings of ill-will or hostility between one or more sections of the community on the one hand and any other section or sections of the community on the other hand; or
(ii) feelings of ill-will towards, hostility to or contempt for any class of inhabitants of Trinidad and Tobago distinguished by race, colour, religion, profession, calling or employment; or

(e) to advocate or promote, with intent to destroy in whole or in part any identifiable group, the commission of any of the following acts, namely:
(i) killing members of the group; or
(ii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.

Limitation
(2) But an act, speech, statement or publication is not seditious by reason only that it intends to show that the Government has been misled or mistaken in its measures, or to point out errors or defects in the Government or Constitution as by law established, with a view to their reformation, or to excite persons to attempt by lawful means the alteration of any matter in the State by law established, or to point out, with a view to their removal by lawful means, matters which are producing, or have a tendency to produce—

(a) feelings of ill-will, hostility or contempt between different sections of the community; or

(b) feelings of ill-will, hostility or contempt between different classes of the inhabitants of Trinidad and Tobago distinguished by race, colour, religion, profession, calling or employment.
"Betrayal of the people's trust, to me is much more dangerous
Than what they talking 'bout.
Sedition, careful, careful how you talking...hey hey!"

"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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