Drinking rum and Coca-Cola
Go to Point Cumana
Both mother and daughter
Working for the Yankee dollar
This is another post where I haven’t worked out exactly what I want to say, but I have a lot of background to put up in case, possibly, sometime in the future I may want to come back and say more about some part of all this.
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Almost two weeks ago in my post Conspiracy Theories And Masturbation I mentioned the old TV show The Lone Gunmen. To prepare that post, I watched all three DVDs, the show’s entire one season run. In one episode, “The Lying Game,” the show ends with a calypso song playing on the sound track.
It’s the Andrew Sisters singing their 1945 hit, “Rum and Coca-Cola,” a song that spent ten weeks, back then, at the top of the charts.
The episode didn’t feature the entire song, just basically one verse and the chorus. The chorus stuck with me and a few days ago I looked up the full lyrics and—WTF!—that made me look into the background of the song.
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The song as recorded by the Andrew Sisters is a silly, Americanized pop calypso thing but even the “silly” version is clearly about American troops going to Trinidad and using their money to turn all the women into hookers.
Yeah. One of those happy and peppy and bursting with love kind of fun songs!
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The real-life background of the song is unbelievable, too. It has its own Wikipedia page: “Rum and Coca-Cola” at Wikipedia.
Moray Amsterdam—Buddy Sorrell!—went down to Trinidad to entertain US troops. He heard a local calypso song lamenting the way US troops were fucking over the local women in particular and the local culture in general. Amsterdam came back to America and somehow used his show business connections to cover the song here—in a happy and peppy and bursting with love kind of fun way!—and get his named listed as the lyricist.
It became a big court case and, eventually, the local musician from Trinidad won the case and was awarded more than a hundred thousand dollars in back royalties.
The original neoconservative agenda: Raping your women. Stealing your music. And then selling your women and music to the world.
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Of course, the Trinidad calypso incident is kind of a microcosm of what happened to the whole blues genre right here at home. (“Home” is a tricky word there.)
And the Brits continue that tradition: British Blues
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The whole Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy! thing of course is from the invasion of Iraq, the liberation of Najaf, as reported by Jim Dwyer in the New York Times.
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Here is the inevitable YouTube of the Andrew Sisters (just audio) singing “Rum and Coca-Cola” followed by the complete lyrics:
If you ever go down Trinidad
They make you feel so very glad
Calypso sing and make up rhyme
Guarantee you one real good fine time
Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar
Oh, beat it man, beat it
Since the Yankee come to Trinidad
They got the young girls all goin' mad
Young girls say they treat 'em nice
Make Trinidad like paradise
Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar
Oh, you vex me, you vex me
From Chicachicaree to Mona's Isle
Native girls all dance and smile
Help soldier celebrate his leave
Make every day like New Year's Eve
Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar
It's a fact, man, it's a fact
In old Trinidad, I also fear
The situation is mighty queer
Like the Yankee girl, the native swoon
When she hear der Bingo croon
Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar
Out on Manzanella Beach
G.I. romance with native peach
All night long, make tropic love
Next day, sit in hot sun and cool off
Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar
It's a fact, man, it's a fact
Rum and Coca-Cola
Rum and Coca-Cola
Workin' for the Yankee dollar
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