My People [Song]

Uploaded by seukeran
MY PEOPLE
By The Watchman

I'm an African, I'm a West Indian, I'm a Trinbagonian
Yes, all these things are true
But I'm am a working man, a calypsonian, I'm your fellow human
Yes, I am one of you
But every time I ask you to choose your people
You start using colour and class one time
But as a man who know how it is to struggle
Let me tell you how I choose mine.

Like if a man could sell on the highway all day
Just to try and live honestly
And would break he back in a quarry for small pay
Any time he wants, he can walk with me
But if you call yourself a top lawyer
But go to court and lie to try to save a drug pusher
If Dole Chadee money make you fat while your conscience grow small
You're a leech and you're not my people at all.

Rise up my people, let the world know you are alive
Let them see that despite our struggle, my people are bound to survive.

Men go work obeah and then beg Father just to get a dollar
Yes, back and forth we switch
We don't have money but will play Lottery 'cause we think we're lucky
Yes, we want to be rich
But some of the rich people you admire
Their business is laundering drug money
And when they try to outsmart the mafia,
Their grave is a canefield in Caroni.

But if a man could sell cloth and bara on a bike
And thirty years later he gets wealthy
He could build up as many plazas as he likes
That is the progress I want to see
But if today a man broke and hungry
And tomorrow he driving posh motor car
My people may never own a Ferrari
But at least we could get old and retire.

Rise up my people, let the world know you are alive
Let them see that despite our struggle, my people are bound to survive.

They are autocrats playing democrats to control you peewats
Yes, that's your legacy
Talking integration but to their children teach segregation
Yes, divided unity
So you only go to shows that have your own people
Africans go to pan, Indians, Divali Nagar
But when the both of you come out your show and you miss your vehicle
Well is your own people thief your motor car.

But if a man could marry a woman not his race
And both of them could live as one family
And their children play with your children, no disgrace
That is the essence of unity
But if a nightclub refuse me entry
Saying golliwogs can't mix with these so called whites
That white boy who kill sure to skip the country
'Cause in local jail every night is golliwog night.

Rise up my people, let the world know you are alive
Let them see that despite our struggle, my people are bound to survive.

"Every man's a brother." and "Love thy neighbour." - just words on paper
Yes, we pay lip service
We go hug another but in we corner go cuss he mother
Yes, supreme prejudice
Some Indians and whites will make it their business
To hog the resources for their own clan
We negroes will boast that how we ent racist
Because we always sleeping with Indian woman.

But if a man could feed all the vagrants on the streets,
My people will honour him for his deeds
And could save all the battered women that he meets
These are the things that my country needs
But if a man call heself a pundit
And have a newspaper, he say is to protect the poor
Only poor naked woman inside it
When that pervert dead they should bring him back as a whore.

Rise up my people, let the world know you are alive
Let them see that despite our struggle, my people are bound to survive.

Source:N.B. 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!
..............................................................................................................................
"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