Chje. Listen me. Last time I saw them? I remember my mother, my father—and they was not a thing like Alethia St. Rose. You see? Her name was Alethia, but the people called her Singing Sonia. That name she gave herself. I tell you, that name, it everything you need to know. That name tell you the world is not its maps. And streets is not the only way through the pasts we stand in today, watching the woman singing. I’ve watched her watching the scene for years, watching us catch us in lingoes we try to know. She sing that song full of years and the hard patterns of people things happen to. A song like what I’m going to tell you now. You don’t have to know a single word to understand that I don’t want to hear nothing about my heart being a better place for my mother and father, killed in Saudi Arabia. I don’t know. But I told that to Singing Sonia seventy years ago, and so she wrote songs, not just this song, which I will sing for you if I can. By now even I am sure I understand, even though I don’t know. Singing Sonia said a small girl can carry the visions of a hundred years in her voice. And I believed her. Just like I believed these stories would strain any voice but hers.
verse 1: she sing my mother and father done died when I was young in Saudi Arabia…
chorus: she sing that child will have her bits / but not in no time of war / that child in a English island / singing peace / not because it never / was Spanish, it never was Fulani, it never / was French, it never was Carib it never / was Taino it never was Dutch it never / was Creole it never was god, it never / was Hispaniola, was Ioüanalao / that child go have her bits like drum does have it beats / like flute does meet good air and make people forget sleep / like feet does chip the streets down to a last song / never mute, no mute, the god in she voice rough like leather gone…
verse 2: she sing I raise up by a Portuguese man and a Zulu woman / hateful man / it’s the other one, the Zulu woman, who name come crowd the streets…
chorus: that child go have her bits…
verse 3: she sing my Zulu mother, my mother now, could speak a hundred lingo, a hundred ways till town / she sing my Zulu mother, my mother gone take song ’round the world…
chorus: that child go have she bits…
verse 4: she sing restlessness, how I go everywhere to sit with the Zulu woman on street corners / five hours to listen, the rest of life to learn / five hours to find another tongue / and she, the Zulu woman, my mother now, go speak and write any lingo by the fifth hour…
chorus: that child go have her bits…
verse 5: she sing a English hard, supple as my tenth lingo, she sing my Zulu mother know like me and English in tons, heavy and savvy and blood and iron…
chorus: that child go have her bits…
bridge: she sing often in the case of death, friends and family come wash the clothes for bedding the sick woman, my Zulu mother long in she illness now that she could go nowhere to learn new patois, one hundred, she sing, was not enough / bring that bedding, come carry to the river / wash that bedding left it dry in the sun / all week that river spot empty like the plague / the plague that love only itself / here you sing that song you don’t know how / but is a song about honey / so you clap and sing, two things one time / long live
chorus: that child will have her bits / she go bathe where they washed clothes of the Zulu woman, her dead mother now, / oh, no them bawl, she shall surely die / sing if death must come let it find she where nobody heart better than the streets them seven decades know / that child will have her bits…
verse 6: she sing, give December it month of October / give it koutumba and bèlèkont / give it dancers like Anazilta and Ma Bye / Josephine a.k.a Misueleye / give December Shantwel and Hollywood Roseau / give it a Geest banana shed in Roseau…
chorus: that child go have she bits…
verse 7: she sing, give Saturday evening it gyrating hundreds, it conga drum, it banjo, it shak-shak, it electric wire from 1970, it flambeau, it bottle full a kerosene, put fire in it nose, light low under moonlight / if you come from high, bring your flashlight / where you hi-fi beating short on batteries / where generators bound for the ceremony / let she rest, let the Zulu woman rest…
chorus: that child go have her bits…
verse 8: she sing, if you meet the devil at the crossroads, tell him she send greetings / she send the crowd going home after dance hide up by the dark / tell him forget the spot where you hide your flambeau / tell him no evil come this far with you alone / if the devil don’t let you pass stay at a friend house / tell him bring another fearless crew to broff with Lajabless / tell him the Zulu woman done left the coffin at the crossroads…
chorus: for that child to have she bits…
verse 9: she sing talisman she carry on herself / from the brown-tooth Obeah man or he witch doctor from southern swell / from west if you’re feeling brave / she sing stories walking with the dead / songs for children before bed / them together in one bedroom / and those in another house / she sing, my mother and father, dead in Saudi Arabia, dead again, Singing Sonia, my Zulu mother…
chorus: (okay, I want all of us to sing this one together) that child go have she bits…