Music, Lyrics, Innuendo and Hypocrisy

Jul 13, 2014 News

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Countryman – Stories about life, in and out of Guyana, from a Guyanese perspective

By Dennis Nichols

In almost any place on Earth, people like to talk about the good old days. We in Guyana are no different; in fact here it has a

distinct and plaintive ring to it – a nostalgic yearning for an earlier era when things were better, the city was cleaner, people were nicer, politicians were more scrupulous, children were well-behaved, the cost of living was lower and morals were higher.
Some of us look back on pre-independence days with real regret that they are gone forever, implying, or saying plainly, that over the past four decades or so, our country has regressed to become what some call a failed state. One facet of this perceived failure is the area of culture, and one aspect of that culture is music.
Time was, they say, when we sang and played, listened and danced, to ‘good’ music including compositions by our own musicians and entertainers in addition to what came to us over the airwaves from the Caribbean, the United States, England, and elsewhere half a century ago. From the Mighty Sparrow to the Drifters and the Beatles, the foreign fare complemented the songs/music coming from locals like Johnny Braff, Mark Holder, Des Glasford’s Combo 7, and The Rhythmaires. (Remember them?)
I grew up, from early childhood, listening to pop music, literally thousands of songs that spanned the gamut of genres – Classical, Religious, Soul, Country and Western, Calypso, Reggae, Jazz, and Rap. Much of what I listened to was what you could term nice music – beautiful love songs, faith-affirming hymns, empathetic ballads and soulful serenades. But there were others, and any Guyanese who lived through the ‘60s and ‘70s would tell you that some of them were perceived as less than ‘good’.
In the sixties we lived next to a family that owned a jukebox and, if my memory serves me right, hosted dances every Saturday night. These were usually loud affairs, made the more raucous by occasional fights, drunken revelry and sexual licence. By age 10, I was hearing and seeing things that impressed themselves curiously and perversely on my mind, since, for example, I had a fairly clear notion of what Sparrow was referring to when he sang about ‘Mr. Benwood Dick’ and ‘The Big Bamboo’ or those of a dozen other calypsos with sexually-charged or ambiguous lyrics. They were played frequently and stridently at parties during those

‘good old days’.
By the early seventies, I was hanging out with a group of young men who drank, talked loose and partied lustfully, (not lustily) and I attempted to do likewise. By that time some big hits were coming out of Jamaica, some of which, like the calypsos, were filled with innuendo and nuanced lewdness, so that a party/dance became for young men, an occasion only for ‘sharking’, ‘hustling’ and ‘catching a thing’. Making friends, enjoying the ambience of the venue; even eating became secondary activities. It was music and girls.
However the lyrics of some of today’s songs, particularly that to which young boys and girls are exposed, seem to make those of the sixties and seventies appear tame by comparison. Ambiguity and innuendo have been replaced by the most vulgar, blatantly suggestive and obscene lyrics, compounded by derogatory and insensitive allusions to those we like to call ‘the fairer sex’, many of whom themselves seem to enjoy and revel in certain pejorative names.
Some time ago, I was moved to put up on my Facebook wall (I hope that’s the right term) on behalf of all decent women and girls, a rejection of the ‘B’ word used to refer to them in certain song lyrics and in conversation. It read in part “…I guess some guys have girls who are Brazen, Ignorant, Thoughtless, Cold & Heartless; maybe those are seen as b*****s, but most that I know, including my wife, daughter and sisters, are Beautiful, Intelligent, Talented, Compassionate & Humble …”It may be a pretty lame gimmick, but at least young women can think of the word in this more uplifting acrostic fashion.
However there’s something that one street-smart fellow warned me about some time ago when comparing apparently dirty lyrics with seemingly innocuous ones. He pointed out that when a beautiful, acclaimed singer like Whitney Houston sang her soulful hit song ‘Saving All My Love for You’ she was actually condoning adultery, because she was crooning about making love to a married man. On the other hand, he added, a Jamaican dancehall ‘artist’ may scream about what he wants to do with a woman in the crassest manner, but it’s usually with an unmarried young woman. In practice then, which is worse?

It’s probably easy to forget that some of the major hits of the ‘60s and ‘70s were songs that in a very sincere and heartfelt way, glorified fornication and adultery. What did Luther Ingram meant when he sang ‘If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right’ or Billy Paul with ‘Me and Mrs. Jones, we got a thing going on…?’ Then there were others like ‘Help me make it through the night’, ‘Let’s get it on’, ‘Do that to me one more time’, and even Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Let’s get physical’ all of which embraced the theme of sex.
The problem here then is that there is a fairly big difference in the way it is put over in song. Not many people will be unduly offended by sex, matrimonial or otherwise, being clothed in soft tones and romantic sentiments. That somehow seems more acceptable, more socially palatable and less subject to criticism and condemnation than brash dancehall. In our human psyches, the ego and libido, don’t like to be unmasked. The façade of a sweetly-suggestive ‘love’ song is much more tolerable than its barefaced reality.
So let’s not be too judgmental and self-righteous in our take on today’s songs and music. Some adults who judge some young people may be among the biggest transgressors and hypocrites you can find, from priests to politicians, and every moralist in between. Human beings are imperfect, and singers/musicians write and sing about many aspects of this imperfect human condition. Sex and sexual expression are a big part of life, music is universal, and it may simply be that many older folk become very uncomfortable when reminded of their younger libidinous days.
Anyway, those of us who are bothered by the lyrics and melodies that pass for music nowadays, shouldn’t worry too much. A short generation from now, those who seem caught up in the hedonistic thrall of today’s derogatory dancehall and dub lyrics, will probably hold their heads and bawl at whatever kind of new crudity and obscenity their children and grandchildren are gyrating to. And life will go on.

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