STOP! You imperfect speaker!

As we all know, Carnival is a barometer, the mirror of the society. The tempo, the feel of the mass, reflects the society. Art imitating life imitating art: evolving through the centuries, Carnival has at times provided the means for various styles of self-expression and a ready vehicle for confrontation, which could be played out between the competing revellers themselves or against the authorities.

Carnival bands were by their origins aggressive, led by chantwells who encouraged the stickmen, who were, in turn, enervated by the music, which, together with the heat and the rum, also drove the crowds, both members and onlookers, into a frenzy.

Carnival for the outsider is often unnerving in its disorder and abandon. To the European of the 1880s, the dancing was nothing but the most disgusting obscenity, "being an imitation more or less vigorous and lustful by the male and female performer of the motions of the respective sexes in the act of coition".

The contemporary writer goes on to add that together with the rum and the excitement, "performers and spectators then disperse with their passions excited to go and put into immediate practice the immoral lessons they have been greedily imbibing." Ent.

Undoubtedly, there was a grain of truth in this observation. But there was more to it than that. The portrayals expressed the grandeur of the imagination of a subject people, yearning for the "other". Let's go and look at mas in 1937.

Dressed in several textures of black, his shoes replicas of coffins, his very wide-brimmed hat a castle of crossed destinies, armed with cutlasses, knives and pistols, his face painted white like a skull, his whistle rings loud above the surrounding noise, his prey embarrassed in their uncostumed role of spectator grin sheepishly, trying to edge away, but already a small crowd has gathered and they now find themselves as a part of street theater, protagonist, antagonist and audience -

"STOP! You imperfect speaker! Stop!

Drop your keys and bend you knees,

and call me the Prince of Darkness, Criminal Master.

I have no compassion. In this time of execution,

Master of Masters, King of Kings,

man who can compel men and women to die,

I following the star of the unconquered will,

which makes me inexorable and unbeaten still,

as a burning diadem upon my breast,

invulnerable and calm and self-possessed.

Now my fabulous verses will befuddle your dunce head.

I will have fun and I will give you rocks for bread.

So stand and deliver all the "King's Head" (pennies)

that jangle in your pocket or I will blast your tail like a rocket!"

The crowd, much larger now, applauds. The undisguised shuffle and pay up. They seek to escape, for another robber is on the way, dressed from head to foot in red with tiny silver mirrors sparkling in the brilliant light of noon. From the distance, loud cracks like gunshots. The crowd shout and scatters.

"Jab Jab!" shouts a boy. "Look they coming from Erthig Road!"

In the clearing crowd appear three tall, strapping men dressed in red and yellow tights. Golden hearts cover their chests, and they wear jester's hats like horns, tipped with bells. Their trousers' ends are also sequined with bells, and bells surround their waists. They wield 15 foot long bull whips that crack the sky. Their eyes are wild. Men, women and children flee before their impertinence!

Now what's that smell? Oh Lord no! I thought they would stay in Jouvay. They must have slept out last night - it's a Pissenlit band. these dreadful people have soaked nighties in urine for days or weeks and are wearing them. Run, they coming to rub up on you! Run, quick!

"Look, look what is that?"

It's bats - a bat band on roller skates, all dressed in gray and brown fur, huge wings catching the breeze. Look, one little boy bat! He is jumping, trying to fly. How fantastic! Their masks so real, like bats.

Moko Jumbies always have a dwarf with them to make them look even taller, stalking on stilts 15 or 20 feet above the crowd, dressed in striped pants, a wide skirt and a colourful shirt. They wear torshon for a hat and carry a small umbrella. They collect money from the people in the upstairs windows, but have to be careful about electric wires.

Oh, how cute! Look a baby doll band, all dressed in pink and blue with lots of fru-fru and baby powder! How sweet - what that he's drinking from his bottle? Rum! And look that one, it look like curry running down his legs out of his diapers. What's that he wants to show you? A shilling to see Cain and Abel - well, there it is in a little black box, a piece of cane and a bell.

Carnival is something else again, yes. Oh, look a truck disguised as a radio full of pretty girls! They all work at Rediffusion, Trinidad , you know.

Come let's go and see what Mr. Strasser playing this year. I hear he's coming out from Victoria Square. Last year he played a penny, a huge thing about 12 foot high. No one could see him until he stepped out from where he had formed a part of Britannia.

Look, there is something coming - it's Strasser. Everybody say it's Strasser. What is that - a stamp? Strasser playing six-pence stamp, a huge red stamp depicting Raleigh at the Pitch Lake! How real - look the detail, perfect! It's made of painted cloth with black and gold appliqués. Where is Strasser? He must be there - oh look, he's climbing up onto the float and he's gone, he has disappeared the moment he walked past it, he just stopped still and vanished - how fantastic! I want to see the Seven Ages of Man, they coming out from by Norville's drugstore. That so far, come go.

We go take a drink by Crown Lion Bar. Ah hear they have stick fight tonight!  Look, Mahalle. Eh, Mahalle, give us a drop! - "Not in this car, it not for hiring, it's a private vehicle," he said, slipping into first and driving off his invisible car just missing the orange man.

Patrick Jones and them fellers playing Beelzebub and the Forty Thieves. That is devil mas! They have a Satan with a face, almost as big as you. Eleven devils chained together in the everlasting darkness. Gilbert Scamaroni is plying the beast from the apocalypse, chained to female imps dressed in red with shimmering wings. They have a dance - very sexy. Look skullboxman, bookman, keyman and bellman, and Lucifer the Demon straight from hell. Shiffer Fabien father is play that. They does meet in Lapeyrouse to practice that mas every night for nine nights before Carnival! They collect dead dogs and boil them till they get the bones. Look he have a dog's skull round his neck and look that one have a cowfoot. Take care, they will throw the water they boil the dead dogs in on you. If that hit you, you blight for life!

Look the Belmont tram coming. Let we go by Crown Lion, ah could take a beer.

And several years later:

"Invaders beating sweet - ah ha

Coming down Park Street,

Tokyo coming up, beating very slow

and when the two bands clash

if you see cutlass

never me again to jump up in a steelband in Port of Spain!"

Look the devil dey!

Somebody, I forget now who, once said to me that Jab Molassi (the Molasses Devil) came out of cannes brulées and was played in depiction of the worst thing that could happen on a cane estate: a person meeting his or her death by falling into a vat of boiling molasses. The molasses devil was the ghost of the cane estate.

Jab Jab, whip-cracking, mirrored mass decorated with red and green satin skirts, mauve moiré taffeta and orange stockings, is the father of the Dragon Band or Devil Band. This metamorphosis commenced in 1906, when Patrick Jones assisted by Gilbert Scamaroni prompted by a sacred picture, illustrating the exorcising of the devil from a sick person, displayed in a shop at what is now 65 Queen Street, prompted the organising of the first Dragon mas. Khaki and slate were the colours chosen, cow horns and rope tails were used. They wore flexible wings that flapped. The band was comprised of about 70 or 80 men and women, who carried long forks. There were presidents with even more elaborate costumes, covered with brass buttons and gold fringe, diamante spangles and gold cord. Everyone wore small face masks. There was one central character called Lucifer who wore a golden crown and was even more elaborately costumed. He was portrayed by Gilbert Scamaroni who used a large head mask imported from Germany by the firm Waterman Brothers of Frederick Street. Between 1906 and 1909, cowtails held upright by wire were added. In 1909, Patrick Jones, along with 'Skeedo' Phillips and the Valere brought out the "Red Devil Band". Patrick Jones was a man who loved to read and was able to put his hands on to an illustrated copy of Dante's Inferno, and as a result was able to add a host of diabolical characters to his already charming retinue from hell.

In 1910, Jones brought out a band called "Demonites" and introduced the character of Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. He was enclosed in an iron cage and bound by nine chains. Beelzebub was made of papier mache. Fearsome in character, the entire contraption was carried aloft on poles. In 1911, Satan was introduced. His costume was similar to Lucifer's and Beelzebub's, but he carried a book and a pen in which to record sins. This was the year in which the Beast appeared for the first time, and it was portrayed by a man called "Georgie". This costume of the Beast was made of large fish scales and so constructed that they could bustle up or be made to lie flat.

Professor Gordon Rohlehr tells us a lot about Patrick Jones in his book "Calypso and Society". Jones, he says, was one of the earliest devotees to serious masquerades in the early 20th century. he was a pyrotechnicist and a calypsonian. Known as Chinee Patrick, he was "hakwi", that is, half Chinese and half African. As a calypsonian, he sang under the name Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector, and his songs were in the tradition of Atilla the Hun and Lord Executor. He was a powerful calypsonian, so much so that his challenges were often hardly taken up by even the most significant aficionados of the art.

His daring to put the devil and his hordes from hell on the streets of Port of Spain created an enormous impact on the city, its institutions and citizens and on the calypsoes of the time, and was to be retained in memory and folklore, still imitated, albeit poorly, to this day.

Bruce Procope, from whose paper most of this valuable information has been gleaned, points out that by 1911 the main features of the Dragon Band were already established and were to survive more or less intact for another fifty years. Fresh characters emerged, such as the devil as "gentlemen Jim", who, together with his devil mask, wore a tail coat and carried a stick, behaving in a courtly manner with much bowing and kissing of hands.

Various theories have been brought forward concerning the devil band. Procope writes:

"The theory is that the dragon band is an ambulatory depiction of Satan and his horde cast from heaven ... he and his followers return to earth on the two days before the Lenten season commences in order to try the virtue of the faithful."

The people who played this mas had no reluctance in playing the devil and the forces of evil, although many felt a great excitement, even fear, to be associated with it. By the 1930s, Patrick Jones' band was big, some 200 or 300 people. The devil mas generated mixed feelings. As there was much delving into occult literature, looking for information to enhance the portrayals. Such books as "Hope and the Race" by Frank Patterson and the "Chronicles of Leviathan", an anonymous work, were consulted. This was a time when, not only in Trinidad, there was a great interest in the esoteric. Dealing with the devil in exchange for souls was a minor industry amongst both the unscrupulous and the foolish. The fact that it was frowned upon by the religious was sufficient to make it desirable. Others followed Jones' idea. Devil bands had tents, bamboo and carat affairs, where members met to build their mas and to practice their 'pass' or dance steps, and its 'chantwell' to compose songs. The Dragon's head was built in secrecy, so that when it appeared, it would astound even the band members.

The green Beast would have a movable tongue with an iron band around the waist attached to three or four iron chains, held in different directions to control the progress of the character. The dance of the Beast consists of a lunging movement as it strikes out attempting to bring down the horde of surrounding red imps, who would constantly goad him, sometimes there would be several Beasts in a band with one being the chief Beast.

There would be a king imp in red tights, mask, wings, a tail, attended by other imps who would carry axes, scrolls, horns, bells, dice, face cards and scales with weights. The showing of the face card was vital for the water crossing. One authority affirmed that there should be 42 characters in a devil band, some of these would be a gown man, expensively dressed with a mask imported from Europe, a Queen Patroness with her court, Lilith, Eve's mother, a Bookman with a large book and an imp to carry it. The character of Beelzebub would have a host of blue flies, sexy girls, buzzing about. All this produced an amazing sight, with the imps taunting the Beasts and dancing away with highly complicated steps, as other imps would dance, twirl and skip, maintaining a constant activity and providing interesting contrast with the noble mien and stately bowing of the Satanic characters.

Long ago, the fight of the Beast was a feature of Carnival. The corner of Duke and Frederick Streets, midday Carnival Tuesday: the great Beast Zatog the Invincible met and destroyed Azoth, Keeper of the Inferno. This challenge to combat occurred automatically when two devil bands met. Bruce Procope recalls:

"The combat took the form of the execution by the reigning Beast of various dance steps, which the challenger had to imitate. If he succeeded, he then had to demonstrate his own for the reigning monster to imitate. The one who failed was dishonoured. To be the reigning Beast was considered the highest honour."

"Mr. Jones says that the Dragon or Beast was suggested to him by a picture of St. Mark and the Beast which he saw at Laventille church," writes Procope. "Another of our informants, Mr. William La Borde (alias Willie the Beast) also remembers Georgie. Georgie was the reigning Beast from whom Willie captured the crown. The step that brought him victory was one which was shown to him in a dream. One night after practice at the tent of his band, Willie went home to sleep. He dreamt that a man came to him dressed in a top hat and tail coat. The man suddenly turned into a zandolie and started to wriggle on the ground. Willie awoke, told his wife about the dream and immediately began to practice a step in imitation of the movements of the zandolie. He perfected this dance and by it won the crown from Georgie."

With regard to the crossing of the water, Procope recounts the "coming out" or the "invocation", which takes place as the band is coming from the place where it has assembled onto the streets to parade. Led by the King Imp and his sexy quick-stepping horde, the music band blasting live music on their feet in the road. they would burst upon the streets, the Beast itself, green-scaled with its clawed dragon's feet straining at the chains held by the musclemen, barely able to contain it. As the Beast approaches the first drain, the King Imp or "tempter" steps forward, confronts him, and rings a big brass bell. He shows him a face card to bring him to a halt. The imps, in blazing red, their wings quivering, sequins sparkling in the noonday sun, show their "pass" and perform their play with cutesy antics and much teasing of the Beast.

The Beast, head rearing, claws slashing the air, attempts the crossing, feigning fear lest any part of his person should touch the water flowing in the street's canal. With the Beast "over the water" other characters blaze out, bats temporarily traveling with the band, big with black huge wings; zombies, a section of jumbies in black and red. Two robbers also moving with the ban enter Piccadilly Street, glowing, pulsating with human energy, Lucifer last of all, elegant, black satin cape lined in red velvet, dressed in the costume of a grand duke with scarlet sashes and jeweled orders, and ceremonial sword in hand. Before him, mincing and cringing, his court of sycophants. They mime a play that none but they can understand. A coffin carries a man. A live black cat looks out from the Queen's hair piece. They have real dwarves who are old men, seen dragging chains to which are attached souls waiting to be reincarnated. The performance of crossing the water is repeated. The teasing of the Beast continues. Small boys run up with slapsticks to make him jump, and old women throw pails of water before Lucifer to stop him - isn't that a tradition from Catholic Ireland, throwing water before a hearse? But he just laughs hideously and shows them a morocoy and two live frogs he has in a small black and gold box.

The Beast makes a bolt for it, catching the musclemen unawares - but don't worry, he's not going far - just for a cold Carib from his nennen in the planning!

Some lyrics of the day relfect the Red Devil Bands, but that was long ago. Now we are afraid of a weather vane on top the Red House - the old iron dragon. They should put it back!

"I am a monarch from heart and soul

Whenever I go I bound to control

I am guided by the three stars

Jupiter, Mercury and mars.

And if tonight I shall lose my name

Blood is going to flow from every vein

They call me Beginner the terror, the brutal conqueror

Santimanite."

(Lord Beginner)

"Come into my den and there you shall see

Skeletons and bones of your family.

Your body shall be placed on a mountain peak

And there you shall say your prayers for a week

And after that dreadful pain you shall meet a hurricane

Santimanite.

From the very first day that I was born

Men like Houdini started to mourn

Monarchs wept and princes cried

When they saw this new star up in the sky

Astronomers in my horoscope state

He'll be proud, grand, illustrious and great

And they named me Atilla, the terror, the brutal conqueror

Master Mi Minor."

(Atilla the Hun)

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Who celebrated Carnival?

Carnival in Trinidad has grown out of the collective experience of all people who have come to this island from Spanish times, prior to 1797, on through to the present day. 

Carnival is essentially Roman Catholic in origin. Its earliest participants must have been the Spanish settlers who, in isolation, living in the little hamlets bearing beautiful names like San José de Oruna and Puerto de los Hispanioles, would have danced the medieval “burroquete” in the muddy streets accompanied by guitar, fiddle and drum. The local Amerindians must have been looking on in amazement.

 Hardly drawing a crowd, the pre-Lenten fiesta would have been at most a dozen or so people dressed in rags, alpagattas and battered straw hats. The priests, the Governor, the chief of police, and of course the donkey costumes into which a man or boy got to prance about, waving the little ass’ head from side to side, making mincing steps in a parody of riding merrily. The burroquete mas is ancient, having its origins in north Africa and finding itself marooned in Spain after the withdrawal of the Moors in the 1490s. Eventually, it was brought to the New World.  

In the period before 1783, before the influence of the French and Africans, it has been suggested that the population was as follows:

Spanish white - 126

Coloured - 245

Slaves - 310

Amerindians (Carib) - 2000 

 

With the Cedula of Population of 1783, a dramatic change took place.  The island, though a Spanish colony, received a French population. These French, made up largely of the petit noblesse of France’s southern provinces, brought with them many slaves. They came mostly from Dominica, St. Vincent, Martinique and Grenada. Amongst them were a great number of people of colour, who were not enslaved. Those were the descendants of earlier French settlers and African slaves. The institution of slavery was then seen by Europeans and Africans, by Christians and Muslims, as an economic reality. It meant that these free black people who came to Trinidad possessed slaves as well.  

 

The population of Trinidad just before the British conquest in 1797 was as follows:

Spanish white: 150

Spanish coloured: 200

Africans enslaved: 300

Amerindians: 1127

French white: 2250

French coloured: 4700

African enslaved: 9700

 

Being almost entirely Catholic in their faith, the French in Trinidad just like the Spaniards observed Lent and celebrated Carnival. It is said that the French combined an aristocratic tradition and their natural tendency to “contagious gaiety, brilliant verbal sally and comic buffoonery” in their version of Carnival. This gave the festival a different flair altogether. Historians say that this period of Trinidad’s development, that is, the 1790s, was marked by a certain degree of racial ease. In as much as both the whites and the free coloureds were sharing the frontier town experience, having freshly immigrated, there was an atmosphere of modest mingling. In fact, there was a lot of so-called ‘miscegenation’ taking place! It was only with the advent of the British conquerors that this changed. 

 

Carnival celebrations of the turn of the 19th century were enjoyed by both groups of the population. But what of the several thousand slaves?

 

Port of Spain had then a large slave population which acted as domestics. What of the hundreds of slaves who moved about on their masters’ business, as messengers, sailors, wagon drivers, etc.? According to tradition, they took no part in Carnival. A memory by Ofuba the chantwell, a slave who sang “Neg deye polla” has been preserved, picturing a slave peeping from behind the door at the Carnival fête of the French masters (“Nègre derrière la porte”).

 

By the 1820s, during Governor Woodford’s term, the free persons of colour were subjected to very stringent regulations, and although it was not forbidden to wear masks, they were compelled to keep to themselves and never presumed to join the amusements of the privileged class.

 

The Caribs were moving in their own world, their own time and space. Their rapidly diminishing share in the population did not share in the realities of the European and African immigrants, who in turn may not have noticed them particularly.  

 

A description of a Carnival ball has come down to us. Mrs. Bruce’s ball in 1831 was attended by “the beauty and fashion of Port of Spain, composing a motley assemblage of elegantly dressed ladies, largely Swiss damsels, French marquises, English noblemen, grooms, postillions, priests and friars” (the latter costumes have been banned since then). The French also disguised as their servants and slaves, their husbands and mistresses. One costume was the graceful and costly one of the “mulatresse” of the time, whilst gentlemen adopted that of the “nègres du jardin” (in Patois ‘neg jardin’) or field  labourer. In that costume the gentleman often figured in the “bamboola” in the “giouba” and in the “calinda”, all popular local dance steps of the era. 

 

The French would often unite in bands, their faces blackened with soot, representing different estates. Lionel Fraser, who wrote a history of Trinidad, relates:

“In the days of slavery, whenever a fire broke out upon an estate, the slaves of the surrounding properties were immediately mustered and marched to the spot, horns and shells were blown to collect them and the gangs were followed by drivers cracking their whips and urging them with cries and blows to their work. After emancipation, the negroes began to represent this scene as a kind of commemoration of the change in their condition and the procession of ‘cannes brulées’ used to take place on the night of the 1st of August, the date of emancipation.” 

 

In later years, the practice of cannes brulées was used at a different time of year to inaugurate Carnival. With emancipation, social life was altered between the free black people and the slaves. The ancient lines of demarcation between them as classes were obliterated. Fraser remarks:

“As a natural consequence, the Carnival degenerated into a noisy and disorderly amusement of the lower classes. The earliest record of an attempt to regulate or control Carnival appears in 1833. An attempt was made by Mr. Peake (assistant to the chief of police) to check the shameful violation of the Sabbath by the lower order of the population who are accustomed about this time of year to wear masks and created disturbances on a Sunday.” 

 

Peake arrested several people. On returning to his home, he found that all his windows had been broken. 

Calypso, Calypso Music

The 1940s were one of those significant times in Trinidad and Tobago's history. In a very real sense, they marked the end of an epoch, and the commencement of another. The period that came to an end was 'the old time days'. A slow-paced, patois-speaking island, where everybody certainly knew everybody else, and where the events of the day passed from mouth to ear with the easy familiarity of village life.

There was a club called the 'Long Tom Cigar Smoking Club of Almond Walk' that met early every morning outside Mouttet's on what is now Broadway, smoke, drink coffee, and talk about the latest news. This club, mentioned in Bodu's '....' and referred to by Col. Collens is worth knowing. Old-time calypsonians like Executor belonged there, as well as the Jones' of Duncan Street who were first to play 'dragon mas', but also such luminaries as old Mr. Gaston-Johnson and José Bodu. They ran old-time Carnival. ... Carnival competition downtown was the event!

Our story begins around 1903. It concerns a young girl of a prominent creole family. Well brought up, gentle, she had attended the Catholic Convent for young ladies in Port of Spain. Soon after leaving school, she met a man. He was from an entirely different background, and was described by people who knew his as "ne'er do well" and "just a common man in the street".

Distracted by passion, blind with love, she left her home and moved in with this person and lived with him for some time. After a years or so, he put her out on the streets and she became a lady of the night, a streetwalker. Naturally in a small community, that was sensational!

Those were the circumstances around which a song was created. The song was called "L'année passée". The composer was Lionel Belasco. Forty-odd years later, with the world at war, this melody with new lyrics became one of the most popular songs of the war years. It celebrated a lifestyle, the change in the overall society of our island. It was called "Rum and Coca Cola", and was rendered by the Andrew Sisters, the most famous singing group of the day to perhaps millions of servicemen all over the world.

The composer, Lionel Belasco, was the most accomplished musician in Trinidad. Growing up in Duke Street, he had lived from his childhood in a musical environment. His mother had been a concert pianist and music teacher. He started to composed at the age of 12, and had written over the years hundreds of waltzes, ballads, pasillos, calypsos and rumbas, becoming the foremost composer in the West Indies. Belasco toured a lot with his own band from Cuba to Belize. The American Victor Recording Company recognised his talent and in 1914 sent technicians to Trinidad to record his band at the London Electric Cinema, which later became the Astor. Belasco later appeared at Carnegie Hall and Grand Central Palace, on National Radio and in several motion pictures made by Paramount. He was a serious artist, but never lost his whimsical charm and sense of humour. He still thought that a woman's extended hand was for kissing, not for shaking.

During his stay in the United States, Lionel, or 'Lanky' as he was known, had made the acquaintance of an impresario by the name of Maurice Baron. Together, they produced many songbooks and collections of written music, which they published and copyrighted in the 1910s in New York.

It was suggested in court that "Rum and Coca Cola" had been lifted from a song in a folio published by them, entitled 'Calypso Songs of the West Indies'. The legal task before the lawyer representing Baron and Belasco was not an easy one. The charge was plagiarism - that a literary or musical work has been stolen from its real creator. When physical or tangible property is stolen, it changes hands. The owner is no longer in possession of it. But when a melody is copied, the owner still has it, and so has the thief! Furthermore, the 'stolen goods' can be disguised by some changes and be presented as an original work. After all, there are only 7 notes in the diatonic scale and 12 notes in the chromatic scale, and in spite of coincidence and the miracle of infinite permutations, one can always demonstrate a prior similarity to a least a snatch of a few lines. To win a plagiarism suit, the plaintiff must establish no merely some similarity with his own prior work, but substantial copying therefrom, as one legal expert put it. And this was precisely what was undertaken in the Baron and Belasco case by the New York firm of attorneys at law. What ensued was to be a landmark case. Baron's and Belasco's lawyers were not bothered with the lyrics of the song, whose origins were not their concern per se.

Lord Invader is credited as having written the words for "Rum and Coca Cola". When Belasco was asked why he did not take action against Lord Invader, he replied that "he was a brother". Perhaps Lanky and Invader met on Broadway one morning and decided that a sad thing was happening, and remembered 'L'année passée' as history repeating itself? In any event, the case was the music. Maurice Baron had written the harmony for "L'année passée". In court, he pointed out that it had sixteen chords and that "Rum and Coca cola" had fourteen identical chords, in the same places and in the same consecutive order.

But most significant of all of the chords written by him was one that was 'musically harsh', so to speak. It was deliberately made so to give a dramatic effect to the French world 'fille' (little girl) in "L'année passée", and thus emphasized the contrast between an innocent girl and the streetwalker she became in the following year, an event that had occured in 1903.

The same dissonant or out chord was found in the identical same spot in "Rum and Coca Cola". There was no reason for its existence there. the copier had left his calling card. The song had been first sung by Jeri Sullovan at the Versailles Night club in New York. It made an impact. The Andrews Sisters recorded it and 200,000 copies were sold, citing Mory Amsterdam as the composer on the record jacket. Maurice Baron and Lionel Belasco won their case, and were paid handsomely.,

The war years, from 1939 to 1945, were a watershed period in Trinidad and Tobago, one which were marked by the lyrics of these two calypsos:

"Since the Yankees come to Trinidad

They have the young girls going mad.

The young girls say they treat them nice

Make Trinidad like Paradise.

They buy Rum and Coca Cola

Go down Point Cumana

Both mother and daughter

Working for the Yankee dollar."

The Mighty Sparrow sang ten years after the war:

"Well the girls in town feeling sad,

No more Yankees in Trinidad,

They going to close down the base for good,

Dorothy have to make what she could.

All of them who use to make style

Taking anything with a smile."