Catch the calypso fever

My steel drum group is playing an arrangement of Bass Man, by The Mighty Shadow. I just found an old recording (link below) and I can’t stop listening to it. Pompidi pom, pom, pim pim pim pom!

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Lyrics to Bass Man – Mighty Shadow (1974)
Written by Winston Bailey

I was planning to forget calypso
And go and plant peas in Tobago
But I am afraid ah cyah make the grade.
Cos every night I lie down in mih bed
Ah hearing a bassman in mih head

I don’t know how this thing get inside me
But every morning, he driving me crazy
Like he taking me head for a pan yard
Morning and evening, like this fella gon mad
(pim pom) And if I don’t want to sing
(pim pom) Well he start to do he ting
I don’t want to, but I have to sing
(pim pom) And if I don’t want to dance
(pim pom) He does have me in a trance
I don’t want to, but I have to prance
to his…
(pom pom pidi pom, pom…)

One night I said to the bassman
Give me your identification
He said “is me Farell
Your bass man from hell
You tell me you singing Calypso
And I come up to pull some notes for you”

I went and I tell Dr Lee Yeung
That I want a brain operation
A man in meh head
I want him to dead
He said it my imagination
But I know I hearing the bass man