http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=161143248"Boy,'' which is what some people still close to him still call Machel Montano, whatever his eventual soca success, emerged from the calypso tradition, "The Letter," the song that brought him to public attention by winning him the Junior Calypso Monarch competition all of 25 years ago belongs firmly in that tradition.
In keeping with that tradition, then, Mr Montano would be well advised to sing out his side of the Zen fracas as other calypsonians have done before him.
I wasn't at Zen on the night but I find the assault of which he has been accused to be totally out of character of the, well, character with whom I have had a relationship of sorts for each of those 25 years, neither Liz, his mother, nor Monty, his father, having passed on violent genes to either of their sons, Marcus or Machel so, if is anything, it has to be environmental, Machel letting on, amazingly, that he has had drinks thrown on him many times - who are those drink-throwing-on-other-people soca louts I wonder.
Still, it is all very well for Machel to hold press conferences to protest his innocence but in the good old days of calypso he would have been winning friends and influencing people with tunes in the manner of Blakie, say, whose "They Say Blakie Kill a Man'' is a wry understated putdown of rumours to that effect, the song having resonance precisely because his compatriots well know that Trinbagonians, to a man and to a woman, is a seta "they say" people.
Still, there's no gainsaying the fact that Blakie's kill-a-man song was, well again, in tune with a time when some calypsonians liked to portray themselves as "bad johns" as likely to slap you down as look at you, Sparrow, singing in his "Bad Johns'' how he "tired beat up Dewah, Spree and Magoto'' and how "Big Teddy Kingsale fraid'' he "more than he fraid the jail'' and none of them taking Sparrow on since they well knew that Sparrow couldn't beat up nobody least of all those razor-carrying bad boys of those years, the once-notorious "Fisheye'' laughing with me at the very idea.
Still again, Machel is sure to know and could well draw inspiration from the most celebrated calypso defence of aggressive action ever, Sparrow brilliantly laying out the back-to-the-wall scene in this 1960 road march contender :
"Well, they playing bad, they have me felling sad
Well, they playing beast; why they run for Police,
Ten criminals attack me outside ah Miramar....,Ten to one is murder
About ten in the night on the fifth of October......Ten to one is murder
Way down Henry Street, up by HGM Walker....Ten to one is murder...,
Well, the leader of the gang was hot like a pepper....
And every man in the gang had a white-handle razor...
They say ah push they gal from Grenada....
Well, ah back-back until ah nearly fall in the gutter...,
You could imagine my position, not a police in the area.......!
Well, ah start to sweat, Man, ah soaking wet.....
Mama, so much threat, that's a night ah can't forget.......
Ten ah them against me, and fifty spectator....
And the way dey coming up like dey want to devour...
But in the heat of the excitement, is then ah remember....
In me next pants pocket, ah forget me wedger....
Ah don't know what to do, but ah can't surrender...
They say they go cut me down as small as Pretender...
But as the crowd start to gather, ah started to shiver.......!
In the still of the night, ah was really in a fright....
Me alone against ten, ten vicious men......
Ah remember ah had a chicken at Miramar....
Well, ah said to meself: 'that's mih last supper....''
But ah get away and ah run, till ah reach Johnson corner...
They take off in me skin with big stick an' boulder.....
The fella in front was a very good pelter....
Ah hear 'potow pow,' and the crowd start to scatter.....!''
Looking back now it seems incredible that "Ten to One" did not win the road march (it was second to May-May, also Sparrow's) but it formed a permanent part of this great calypsonian's repertoire. Readers will note (and, maybe, that should be young readers, since generations already know what to note in this classic) that Sparrow never admits to firing any gunshots as he was accused of doing. He just "hear potow-pow and the crowd start to scatter'', so it was left to his great rival of the time, Lord Melody, to sing "Beware, Sparrow have a gun", "Mello" seizing the opportunity to berate Sparrow but only in picong, friendly fire, at it were, Melody in the last verse of the same song jumping to Sparrow's defence and arguing that whatever shots the "Bird" blasted were blasted in self-defence.
Another classic calypso defence was made by the late Merchant who, charged with the very serious crimes of robbery and rape, came up with "Let No Man Judge'' which, while it did not go into a step by step denial of the charges, was timed to put forward the argument that you had to be in the shoes of the wrong-doer to really know, "Let No Man Judge'' not only causing an immediate stir but the philosophy behind it, rightly or wrongly, echoing down the years. So Machel, boy, take this old man's advice and sing yuh way away, if not out of, this mess. And, if I were you, I wouldn't wait until next year but sing it now while the ting still hot.
