Caribbean Song "One Solja Man"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post presents lyrics, video, and comments about the Caribbean song "One Solja" man.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, entertainment, and aesthetic reasons.

My thanks to the unknown composer/s of this song. My thanks also to the collector of this song, and those who have published the lyrics of & notes about this song. Thanks also to the performers on the featured video and the uploader of this video.

All rights remain with their owners.

FEATURED VIDEO
Jamaican Folk Song/ The Carifolk Singers



Uploaded by hollythomas18 on Jul 9, 2010

LYRICS: ONE SOLJA MAN
Verse 1
One solja man come fe court me,
Me sey me no ha' nobody,
Him gimme one shillin' an' quatty.
Me tek i' buy silk an' satin.

Verse 2
Me wash i' me starch i' me iron i',
Me pred i' pon pingwing macka,
An one ole un-conscionable John Crow
Come fling i' eena crevice an' corner.

Verse 3
No tear i' Jeremiah, no tear i',
No tear i' Jeremiah, no tear i',
No tear i' Jeremiah, no tera i',
No tear up me silk an' satin.

Verse 4
A weh yuh dah weel an' tun me,
A weh yuh dah weel an' tun me,
Yuh mussa wan' me fe go fall dung,
An' lick me belly pon tambourina.

Solja- Soldier
Ha'- Have
Quatty- Penny halfpenny
Pred- Spread
Pingwing macka- Cactus
John Crow- Jamaican scavenger bird, but here used in a derogatory sense, alluding to 'Jeremiah'.
Eena- In
Weh- Why
Mussa- Must
Fe go fall dung- To fall down
Tambourina- Tambourine

Also sung as 'One Bungo Man', Bungo meaning an African.
*May be sung as: 'Him gimme one cock-y'eye fourbit', 'fourbit' being one shilling and sixpence.

Pp. 58-59, With music for voice and piano.

Tom Murray, Ed. and arr., 1951, Folk Songs of Jamaica, Oxford University Press.

As posted on http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=40845 by Q on October 4, 20112

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ABOUT THESE LYRICS
"One Solja Man" is a Jamaican Mento song. Another name for this song is "Wheel And Turn Me".* Click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0fMZp8Nerk for a 1952 sound clip of "Wheel And Turn Me" by Lord Flea with The Jamaican Calypsonians. (A number of Jamaican Mento songs are miscategorized as the more popular in the USA category "calypso". Subsequently, some Jamaican Mento singers used the descriptor "Calypso" and "Calypsonian" for their music and their groups.)

*Hat tip to Q from Mudcat for his July 22, 2012 comment on the Mudcat thread whose link is given above for sharing information that connects the Mento song "Wheel And Turn Me" to "One Solja Man".

-snip-

Comments about certain words in "One Solja Man":
In my opinion, "John Crow" in this song is a derogatory referent to a dark skinned Black man. The phrase "An one ole un-conscionable John Crow" doubles down the derogatory meaning of the description (an unconscionable dark skinned Black man"). That meaning is substantiated by the note that the song is also sung as "One Bungo Man", Bungo meaning an African." Also, read the notes for the song "Bungo Moolatta" given below the Caribbean song of that name on http://cocojams.com/content/caribbean-folk-songs Caribbean Folk Songs

The origin of the name "John Crow" comes from the black color of the crow. In the USA "John Crow" became "Jim Crow" and much later was used as a referent for discriminatory practices against Black people in the United States South and elsewhere in that nation.

-snip-
The word "tear" in the lyrics "No tear i' Jeremiah, no tera i'/ No tear up me silk an' satin" in the "One Solja Man" song appears to have the clear meaning of "Jeremiah, don't cause me to tear [cut] my silk and satin dress. But I think that word "tear" may also have have the added meaning of "tearing around [moving fast, wheeling and turning] on the dance floor.

As to how the woman in the song might cut her dress, the subsequent verse has her cautioning Jeremiah not to wheel & turn her so fast on the dance floor.

In the version of "One Solja Man" found above, the verse that includes the word "tambourine" is given as
"Yuh mussa wan' me fe go fall dung
An' lick me belly pon tambourina."

A contemporary American English translation of that verse is "You mustn't want me to fall down and smack my belly upon the tambourine".

Mudcat blogger Q shared a verse from a 1965 ska track by the Wailers that includes the lyrics:
"Now why you come wheel and turn me
Fi go lick a mi head 'pon you tambourine".

A contemporary American English translation for that verse is "Now how come you're dancing with me so hard that you're going to make me hit my head on your tambourine?"

Maybe a "tambourine" is just a "tambourine". But maybe "lick a mi head 'pon you tambourine" was a slang saying that meant "get all jacked up" ("get all messed up"). Or perhaps generally speaking "lick my head (or "my belly") on your tambourine" may have meant something like "fall flat on the dance floor".

-snip-
It’s also my position that the "no tear I Jeremiah" lyrics are an adaptation - albeit for a different purpose and with a different meaning- of the words of Jeremiah 9, verses 1-18. Here are two verses from that chapter:

Jeremiah 9:1 - 1 "Oh, that my eyes were a fountain of tears; I would weep forever! I would sob day and night for all my people who have been slaughtered"

Jeremiah 9:18 - 18 "Quick! Begin your weeping! Let the tears flow from your eyes"

-snip-
Because of those verses and other verses in that book of the Bible, "Jeremiah" is now known as the "weeping prophet". The entire chapter of Jeremiah 9 is found online at http://www.biblestudytools.com/nlt/jeremiah/9.html.

By the way, I found Jeremiah 9 to be particularly poignant in the context of the horrific massacre of movie attendees that occurred on July 20, 2012 in Aurora, Colorado.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/07/president-obamas-comments-dark-knight.html President Obama's Comments "The Dark Knight Rises" Shooting Aurora Colorado (Video & Transcript) for a Pancocojams post about that massacre.

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Click http://cocojams.com/content/caribbean-folk-songs for additional lyrics and videos of Caribbean folk songs.

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