I won’t say it’s a flood, or a daily thing, but I am often asked, sometimes in person, sometimes in writing, about the process of creating songs. I’ve written before that it’s a rather mysterious thing, one I don’t fully understand, but there are some things I can relay. First, you need some of the natural gift of creating melody, that has to be in your genes. Then you have to be an observer, noticing the world and nature and people around you, and you yourself, and you have to have the patience to persevere when you have a burst of mind but nothing jells. That last one is a killer. Often a song will take months – “Wong Ping” took a year – but sometimes it just lands on you almost whole. “Blade O’ Grass” took about two hours. Sometimes you start with a snatch of melody. Sometimes just the title of the song. There is no set formula; it’s trial and error. Sometimes throw everything out and start from scratch. And sometimes just give up completely and deep six the idea. Below, for example, is a lyric I wrote some time ago (I don’t recall what propelled it, but something did) that I have in my archives but I never got around to putting music to it; can’t give you any cogent reason, I just never did. I’m presenting it here almost as something created but truly not yet born, in other words, not out there anywhere, just waiting in the station, essentially a poem, not yet a song.
Why di hell um tekkin so long
Since ah back in Guyana
How tings, people want to know
They ask me, if it coming to come
But it look like it going to go
Some days, di place real hard, me brudda
Hard like piece o’ greenheart
It jukkin mi in mi belly
Ah just doan know where fuh start
Money running low, mi sista
Why so ah won’t speculate
All ah know is plenty people saying
Look budday, le’ we migrate
Yuh risking yuh life when yuh go pon de road
Speed limit is long time scene
They will kill you to pass, big red light
but some people seeing it green
What country is dis dat ah livin in
A hear is di land of mi birth
Ah doan understand who tell me fuh born here
Down to mi toe-nail and all does hurt
Mi cousin Joe tell me hold on budday
Good time coming, you know
Ah been hearing dat since mi short pants days
Dis good time coming real slow
What country is dis dat we living in
How come we get to dis state
Is all o we in dis ting, Bobo
Even di ones who migrate
Doan wait fuh de politician;
No change will come to the land
If we stan quiet in de corner,
Only folding we hand
Don’t wait fuh no damn Messiah
Dat never coming to pass
If me and you cannot fix it
In di end we guh pass for grass
You have to hold onto di sunset
Or morning Mahaica Beach
The Essequibo, the Rupununi
From dat some contentment reach
We waiting for a second Mandela to come
To make everything go right
But up to now I don’t see nobody
Um look like dis country blight
We hoping now for di good days
Like di words in a favourite song
You have to believe dat will happen
But why di hell um tekkin so long
