By Cheryl Springer
It would have been one morning in last week as I was preparing for work, that I heard Tony Ricardo’s song ‘Margie’ playing again on local radio. The ballad tells the story of a man who kills his wife after he finds her in a bar with another man and realises that not only does she have a lover, but also that she is neglecting their baby. Ricardo sings:
…The woman was my wife… Margie, whose watching the baby… Why do you have to tear apart your family … I was filled with rage and I struck out blind… and again, I’m doing time on a murder charge, a victim of jealousy…
The suggestion here being that the fictionalized dead ‘Margie’ was to blame for his actions. A proud-voice announcement at the end said “Guyanese music on Guyanese radio…” Well, so what if it is local music? Should music be played simply because of its origin even when it is distasteful?
True enough, ‘Margie’ was written, performed and made popular in a time when domestic violence was still among Guyana’s worst kept secrets. The song subsequently vanished from the airwaves and should have remained wherever it was. It is just one example of a song that sends the wrong message and which should not be on the radio. There are many other local songs more deserving of the airtime.
Though the message in its lyrics is more subliminal, ‘Margie’ is really no less violent than, say, ‘Gun Down,’ in which Bounty Killer, who was prohibited from coming to Guyana recently and whose songs have been banned from the radio, sings what sounds like:
Gun Down, inna di middle of//Gun Town hey meh silent gun will make//No Sound, inna dem blood dem gwan drown// Reload put in another round dem get…
Both songs promote the idea that it is okay to solve issues by violent means; with ‘Margie’ glorifying domestic violence and its all too often fatal ending.
Back in those days when women rarely made reports to the police about physical spousal abuse, neighbours of battered women would hear the thuds of blows landing and perhaps the women crying out, if they weren’t too ashamed to do so. Next morning, they would see the bruises, the bumps, the black eyes or fractured limbs and pretend they did not notice or had not heard.
The women would invent excuses to explain what was evident, fooling only themselves that somehow their neighbours and peers believed they had really had an encounter with an open kitchen cupboard door, or had fallen on the stairs; when in fact, some of their peers bore the same ‘battered woman’ label and told the same lies.
It was in this era or just prior, I believe, that the famed Trinidadian calypsonian, Mighty Sparrow, born Francisco Slinger, sang his ‘two cents’ on the not-talked-about-openly issue. My father was a Sparrow fan and had all of his records. Although he abhorred violence, once in a while Sparrow’s domestic violence anthem found its way onto the turntable of our stereo:
Every now and then, cuff them down//They love you long and they love you strong//Black up they eye//Bruise up they knee//Then they love you eternally…
Some years ago, while stuck at a Caribbean airport waiting for LIAT, I remember having a lengthy debate with a colleague, Paget De Freitas, who was then at the Jamaica Observer, about whether Buju Banton’s ‘Boom Bye Bye’ was really any worse than this same ‘Birdie’ tune. In the end, we agreed that maybe Sparrow might have redeemed himself in the final line of the song: Then they leave you eternally. But we couldn’t decide whether he meant that the woman would leave her abuser in a wooden box or just walk out under her own steam.
Throughout the ages, music – with or without accompanying lyrics – has been used to tell stories, portray emotion, for worship, for dancing (expression) and as a call to war, among other things. Songwriters have used the art form, and they still do, as a way of expressing their own emotions and other people’s.
Sometimes the blend of words and music strikes a chord among many; they identify with it; it becomes their song.
Once or twice in a generation, a musician will come along who mixes militancy with music in a way that is not just non-threatening, but inspirational as well. Bob Marley’s almost soulful reggae rendition of ‘War,’ an adaptation of Haile Selassie’s famous speech to the United Nations springs to mind, but there are other examples.
People involved in romantic relationships will tell you that love songs touch and motivate them. It stands to reason then that music, which speaks of women as if they are dirt under someone’s shoes, is filled with hate words or glorifies violence, will have the same effect on those so inclined.
This is why attention must be paid to what music is rendered where, at what time and for what reason. Let me hasten to add, before the critics rush to maul me verbally, that this has nothing to do with dictating people’s tastes. People are free to choose whatever music they wish to make their own. This has to do with public radio airplay and the impressionable young minds that apply to it at various times of the day; with showing sensitivity to the times in which we now live; thinking before we spin that disc.
