List of calypso songs about war

This is a list of Calypso music songs whose lyrics and themes are about war. This type of calypsos derives from the tradition of using this musical form to document and discuss events of interest.

CALYPSOS ABOUT WARS

1900s

• "Boer War" (1900), Duke of Marlborough

1910s

• "Argos Papers" (1918), Lord Inventor - The Argos newspaper published an article on allowing carnival again after closure during WWI
• "Kaiser William, Run your Run" (1918), Lord Inventor - WWI

1920s

1930s

• "Abyssinian Lament" (1936), King Radio - Mussolini's attack on Abyssinia
• "Advantage Mussolini" (1936), Roaring Lion - Mussolini's attack on Abyssinia
• "African War Call" - "African War Song" (1938) - Roaring Lion
• "Carnival Again" (1939), Lord Executor
• "Chamberlain Says Peace" (1938), Lord Beginner - Prelude to WWII
• "Civil War in Spain" (1938), Growling Tiger - Spain's civil war
• "Ethiopian War Drums" (1935), Wilmoth Houdini - Mussolini’s attack on Abyssinia
• "Germany Invade Poland" (1939), King Radio - WWII
• "Gold of Africa (The)" (1935), Growling Tiger - Mussolini's attack on Abyssinia
• "Hitler" (1939), Lord Ziegfield - WWII
• "Hitler Demands" (1939), Mighty Growler - WWII
• "Horrors of War (The)" (1938), Atilla the Hun - Prelude to WWII
• 'How Hitler Invaded Poland' (1939), Lord Ziegfield - WWII
• "Let Them Fight for Ten Thousand Years" - "Let the White People Fight" (1939), Growling Tiger - Economic consequences of WWII in Trinidad
• "Poland, Poland" (1939), Roaring Lion - WWII
• "Poppy Day" (1938), Lord Executor
• "Selassie Is Held by the Police" (1937), Lord Caresser - Mussolini's attack on Abyssinia
• "Two Bad Men in the World" (1939), Lord Executor - WWII

1940s

• "Admiral Graf Spee (The)" (1940), Atilla the Hun
• "Adolf Hitler" (1941), Mighty Destroyer - WWII
• "Air Raid Shelters" (1943), King Radio - WWII
• "Black Market" (1945), Lord Beginner - WWII
• "Britain Will Never Surrender" (1941), Mighty Growler - WWII
• "Chinese Never Had a V.J. Day" - "Lay Fung Lee" - "Chinese Calypso" - "Chinese Memorial" - "Lai Fook Lee" (1948), Lord Kitchener
• "Fall of France" (1941), Mighty Growler - WWII
• "Farmer and Breadfruit Tree" (1943), Mighty Growler - Economic consequences of WWII in Trinidad
• "Germany Invade Poland" (1940), King Radio - WWII
• "Hitler Demanded Trinidad" (1940), Lord Invader - WWII
• "Hitler’s Attitude" (1940), Roaring Lion - WWII
• "Hitler's Mistake" (1940), Roaring Lion - WWII
• "Hitler’s Moustache" (1941), Lord Invader - WWII
• "Invasion of Britain" (1941), Atilla the Hun - WWII
• "Invasion of Poland (The)" - "Poland, Poland" (1940), Roaring Lion - WWII
• "Mr. Neville Chamberlain" (1940), Roaring Lion - WWII
• "Nazi Spy Ring" (1940), Mighty Growler - WWII
• "Norah the War Is Over" (1946), Lord Beginner
• "Ode to Russia" (1944), Atilla the Hun - WWII
• "Red Cross Society (The)" (1941), Atilla the Hun
• "Reply to Englishman" (1944), Atilla the Hun - Answer to an Englishman who said Trinidadians did not do enough for the war effort
• "Rise of the British Empire" (1940), Roaring Lion
• "Rum and Coca-Cola" (1944), Lord Invader - American soldier's presence in Trinidad
• "Run Your Run Hitler" (1940), Lord Beginner - WWII
• "Send Hitler to St. Helena" (1940), Atilla the Hun - WWII
• "Soldiers Came and Broke Up My Life (The)" (1945), Lord Invader - American soldier's presence in Trinidad
• "Winston Churchill" (1941), Roaring Lion - WWII
• "Yankee Harvest Is Over" (1945), Lord Beginner - American soldier's presence in Trinidad

1950s

• "Housewives" (1950), Lord Beginner - Economic hardship following WWII
• "Sauerkraut Calypso" (1956), Herbert Howard
• "Warning to Russia (A)" (1950), Mighty Viking
• ”Wars of Long Ago” (1958), Mighty Spoiler
• "Hydrogen Bomb (The)" (1954), Mighty Terror

1960s

• "Kennedy and Khrushchev" (1963), Mighty Sparrow - Cold war
• ”Make Love Not War” (1969), The Mighty Duke
• "Send Me Instead" (1968), King Fighter - Vietnam war

1970s

• "Chinese Love Affair" (1970), Mighty Sparrow - Vietnam war, interracial relationship (humour)
• "My Lai Incident (The)" (1970), The Shah - Vietnam war

1980s

• "Boots" (1983), Mighty Gabby - Government resources used for military spending
• "Children World" (1987), Chalkdust - General comment on wars
• "Grenada" - "Under Siege" (1984), Mighty Sparrow
• "Peace in de World" (1987), Black Stalin
• "War Mongers" (1988), Johnny King

1990s

2000s

• "Stop D War" (2008), Singing Sandra
• "Weapons of Mass Dis-Illusion" (2007), Mighty Sparrow

2010s

• War of Worlds" (2018), Ras Commanda

2020s to present

References

Sources

Books

Journals

• Austin, Roy. "Understanding Calypso Content: A Critique and an Alternative Explanation". Caribbean Quarterly 22, no. 2/3 (1976): 74–83.
• Bilby, Kenneth. "Calypso as a world music". Newsletter - Institute for Studies in American Music; Brooklyn; Vol. XXXIV; Issue 1 (Fall 2004): 4–5.
• Boxill, Ian. "The two faces of Caribbean music". Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 43, No. 2 (JUNE 1994), pp. 33–56 (24 pages). Published By: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies.
• Brown, Ernest. "Carnival, Calypso, and Steelband in Trinidad.". The Black Perspective in Music 18, no. 1/2 (1990): 81–100.
• Charles, C. N. (2016, November 22). Calypso music : identity and social influence : the Trinidadian experience. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/45260.
• Cowley, John. "Cultural 'Fusions': Aspects of British West Indian Music in the USA and Britain 1918-51.". Cambridge University Press, Popular Music, Vol.5, Continuity and Change, pp. 81–96 (1985).
• Cowley, John Houston. "Music & migration: Aspects of black music in the British Caribbean, the United States, and Britain, before the independence of Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago". University of Warwick (April 1992).
• Cowley, John Houston. "West Indian Gramophone Records in Britain: 1927-1950". Occasional Papers In Ethnic Relations, No. l, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, Coventry (April 1985).
• Crowley, Daniel. "Towards a definition of calypso (Part II)." Ethnomusicology, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Sep 1959), pp. 117–124 (8 pages). Published by: University of Illinois Press.
• Floyd, Samuel A. "Black music in the Circum-Caribbean". University of Illinois Press, 1999, volume 17, number 1, pages 1–38.
• Liverpool, Hollis (Mighty Chalkdust). "Researching steelband and calypso music in the British Caribbean and the U. S. Virgin Islands". Black Music Research Journal (1994).
• Rampaul, Giselle. "Shakespeare, Empire, and the Trinidad Calypso". Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation (2015), Volume 9, number 2.
• Regis, Louis "Gordon Rohlehr's forty years in calypso". Caribbean Journal of Cultural studies. Volume 2, number 1 (October 2013). The University of the West Indies.

Articles

• Bowles, Paul. "Calypso - Music of the Antilles". Modern Music, 1940, 17/3 154–159
• Brown Boy in the ring. "Carnival culture: Lord Kitchener to Machel Montano". March 22, 2007
• Dowrich-Phillips, Laura. "7 calypsoes that kept us entertained with hot topics of the day".
• Jacob, Debbie. "What calypso means to the Caribbean" Caribbean Beat Magazine, January 2011.
• Unknown. "'A chronology of selected songs by Mighty Sparrow that address social, political and topical themes".
• Unknown. "Celebrating our Calypso monarchs 1939–1980 T&T - History through the eyes of calypso". Trinidad & Tobago government, 2015/07.
• Unknown. "The golden age of Calypso". Musical Traditions, number 4, 1985.

Audio

External links

• Calypso Monarchs Hall of Fame
• Calypsography
• Calypsonians 1900 - 2018
• Top 100 Calypsos of the 20th Century
• Trinidad & Tobago Calypsonians
• War song