Tony Deyal | Sparrow is not worried ‘bout tomorrow

The sparrow’s not worried ‘bout tomorrow

Or the troubles to come

The lily’s not thinking ‘bout the seasons

The drought or the flood

A tree that’s planted by the water

Isn’t fazed by the fire

So why should I be?

‘Cause You take good care of me

You take good care of me

You know what I need before I even ask a thing

And You hold me in Your hands

With a kindness that never ends

I’m carried in Your love no matter what the future brings

Yeah, You take good care of me

By Sparrow (Lyric Video) with Cory Hunter Asbury, an American Christian musician, and worship pastor.

As an archivist and historian of calypso, Zeno Obi Constance is the one who most of us know is brilliant, with sharing throughout the Caribbean and beyond. He can confidently say that not only was Sparrow the greatest of all time, but his breakout calypso, Jean and Dinah, is the greatest kaiso ever. All the ingredients come together to justify this view. The calypso’s origin is steeped in controversy and a storied truth that is stranger than fiction. The controversy of whether it was penned by Blakie or Sparrow, and the storied fact that it was a failed commercial effort. But the timing, 1956, the emergency of the PNM, and the rise of Belafonte are of fairy tale proportions. The socio-political tapestry against the presence of the Yankees and the prostitution adheres to the dogma ‘by calypsos our stories are told’

In the case of Jean and Dinah, 70 years later and all the school children could still sing, Jean and Dinah, Rosita and Clementina.

Well the girls in town feeling bad

No more Yankees in Trinidad

They going to close down the base for good

Them girls have to make out how they could

Brother is now they park up in town

In for a penny, and in for a pound

Believe me its competition for so

Trouble in the town when the price drop low

So when you bounce up

Jean and Dinah

Rosita and Clementina

Round the corner posing

Bet your life is something they selling

And if you catch them broken

You can get em all for nothing

Don’t make no row, the yankees gone

Sparrow take over now

In my case, I went to the Piarco airport in Trinidad expecting to fly home to Antigua via Barbados. What I never anticipated was an almost two-hour detour to the unlikeliest and yet most welcome of places: Memory Lane. I was sitting near the entrance of the first-class lounge, drinking my money’s worth of coffee, when one of the attendants pushed in an older gentleman, cane in hand like the baton of Superintendent Prospect, the founder and leader of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Band in its glory days, immortalised in the Mighty Sparrow’s Calypso, “Shake your baton like Mr Prospect.” It was not Prospect, but it was Sparrow, and sharing his company was a prospect that not only pleased but was sufficient to make my day, my month, and even some aspects of my existence. Internally I shook with delight like Mr Prospect’s baton. Externally, I was my usual suave, silky, smooth self. I told the great Sparrow that I know some of your calypsos that I am sure you don’t remember. I gave him, “Sparrow move your hand/ Boy, look move your hand/ Sparrow boy ah feeling shame, / Move your hand.”

That was not enough. I jumped hurriedly out of my seat, went and shook his hand, introduced myself in the context of the television programmes I hosted in the days of yore and more, and then sang, “Ah fraid you make a calypso on me, / Not me, / I don’t want you to make, a calypso on me, / Ah know nobody go see, / That is only the two ah we, / But ah fraid youh go make a calypso on me.” That chorus, the negative and perfectly logical response from the delectable Lulu who was “the prettiest woman in Trinidad/ And you have me going staring mad”, opened the door for me, and when asked by the attendant, “Where you want to sit?” Sparrow replied, “Next to that gentleman.” And the floodgates opened. “Sorry, old man, that won’t do for me/ I don’t carry message for anybody/ If you want to see she, don’t worry to send me/ Climb up the step you won’t fall/ It have a bell on the gate/ Ring it and wait / She must come after you call.” The king got a pittance while the queen got what, for us at the time, were luxury items. Sparrow decided to strike for more money. He sang, “I will put my calypsos on the shelf/ Let them keep the prize in Savannah for dey own self/ Let the queen run the show/ With she fridge and she radio/ Who want to go could go over dey/ But me eh going no way.”

Obviously, as my colleague Zeno Obi Constance tells all of us, both the younger ones as well as those older ones who need to do well, Education a must and it goes,

Education, education

This is the foundation

Our rising population

Needs sound education

To be recognized anywhere you go

You got to have your certificate to show

To enjoy any kind of happiness

Knowledge is the key to success

Children go to school and learn well

Otherwise later on in life you go ketch real hell

Without an education in your head

Your whole life will be pure misery

You better off dead

For there is simply no room in this whole wide world

For an uneducated little boy or girl

Don’t allow idle companions to lead you astray

To earn tomorrow you got to learn today

And my friends, there were enough people who from a long time before thought that the great Sparrow was dead, dying, and close. At this time, though, that time has now passed, but we have something better, he had Home for the holidays and as he said:

Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays

‘Cause no matter how far away you roam

When you pine for the sunshine of a friendly gaze

For the holidays you can’t beat home, sweet home.

And even now and still there are many faces to Sparrow- his humour, his women, his travels, his concern for social justice, his politics, and his raw sexuality. But they are our faces, our concerns, and our interests. He is us. Even larger than life, he is our life.

Zeno Obi Constance and Tony Deyal with a very small set of “Memories that began one of the Mighty Sparrow’s hundreds of recorded calypsos, telling our stories on every imaginable topic, from culture and folklore, national pride, politics, love, scandal and bacchanal to cricket.