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Anu Lakhan

In my head I was singing the lyrics: “Hold me now, it’s hard for me to say ‘I love you.’”
I have a notoriously perverse memory. My hearing can best be described as “interpretive.”
That music remains at the centre of my life is a gift for which I cannot account. Like it was dropped on the doorstep in a basket and I kept it, no questions asked.
I have a special gift for not hearing the correct thing. I warbled/garbled the song to a willing victim, who immediately caught the mistake. In 1982, a now very old man called Peter Cetera from the old-old band Chicago sang the words “It’s hard for me to say I’m sorry” in a song called Hard to Say I’m Sorry.
This clue was lost on me.
I know from whence the mistake cometh. I’ve had this question about soca lyrics rolling around in my head for years and we get to this year’s Carnival and I’m thinking about it as much or more than ever. Nailah and Skinny’s Come Home is to blame.
Love songs to Carnival, mas, soca, fete, pan, iron, waistlines, wining, the road, the pavement, the stage and J’Ouvert abound. If you’ve not had a hit about loving bottoms or rum, have you really had a hit?
This is not to trivialise a long history of calypsoes about politics, society, funny and/or serious anecdotes, and tributes to people and things we value. But I’m talking about now.
There are exceptions but now (and by “now” I refer to most of my life, the only kind of now with which I am personally acquainted) is really the time of the upliftment in song of bottoms and rum.
I have no problem with this. This is the path the music has taken and if this is where it arrived, it is because we want it like this. The music will not go where it is not wanted.
I still have a question, though, about our ability to express devotion and passion to the things and experiences that make up the season, but almost never to one person. If we say we love or have some degree of romantic interest in someone, it is almost certain to be wrapped in the language of how she wines, how he is able to wuk it up, how he-she-or-it is able to push back on we.
Now, I am amenable to all these verbs, but will anyone still love me if I don’t feel like a wine at any given time? The music evolves at the pace of us. Barring exceptions like Patrice’s Tender, how comfortable are we singing or talking about love?
I have long held out Stalin’s Black Man Feeling to Party as the one true love song. This is not of the genre of falling in love, love at first sight, oh-God-I-must-have-you songs. This is a song about staying the course and celebrating a successful relationship full of normal things like children, responsibilities, support and sacrifice. True love, I think.
This season rolls around and the music is on in the background and I’m catching phrases. “It was a misunderstanding.” “I can’t get over it.” “Come home to me.” But I’m too far away and I’m missing some important links.
And then I hear the whole thing and the context is made plain. And it’s still beautiful and emotional and utterly charming. But it’s not what I thought it was. And it’s not what I’d hoped it was – a love song to a person.
I come from a long line of people who have no trouble saying they love you. We may be too enthusiastic about saying it. We will say it in notes and birthday cards. We will say it at Christmas and Divali. We will say it when someone is ill. That’s us as siblings, parents, aunts and uncles et al.
I do not know, nor do I have the courage to ask any of these relatives if they say it to their spouses.
When I say I love someone, it’s a kind of commitment. Not to have and to hold, but to care for, show kindness, respect, to be able to share good and bad.
If we can find our way to more sincere articulations of love, does that bind us to greater responsibility to others?
So, full circle: the music goes where we ask it. I think we have more complex feelings than we give ourselves and our musicians credit for.

Remember to talk to your doctor or therapist if you want to know more about what you read here. In many cases, there’s no single solution or diagnosis to a mental health concern. Many people suffer from more than one condition.
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