The Calypso Singer

Duration:

Year Published: 1966

Creator: Toda Films Paul Glickman

Complete Record: Cartoon figures --- one is playing a bongo drum and the other is the singer. Two main figures are simply drawn and fill in color contains brush strokes. In background three players -- one with mariachis, one with bass violin and another with guitar. Film consists of the song, “Day-O“. The singer takes directions from the bongo player who thinks the singer is too loud. Humorous film has a beatnik type sensibility and a cool aesthetic of the 1960s. "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" is a traditional Jamaican mento folk song, the best-known version of which was sung by Harry Belafonte (1957). Although it is really Jamaican mento, the song is widely known as an example of calypso music (calypso is Trinidadian). It is a song from the point of view of dock workers working the night shift loading bananas onto ships. Daylight has come, the shift is over and they want their work to be counted up so that they can go home.