My mother was an unusual woman who had, among other attributes, an inclination to laugh at anything and everything. In fact, as a youngster, I would often be puzzled at some of the things this woman would laugh at – me bucking my toe, for instance, or my sister’s Sunbeam Oil-Bath bicycle leaking oil – but later in life, as I started writing songs for Tradewinds, it gradually dawned on me that I had developed the same addiction to humour. I remember being almost hysterical at the keen humour in many of the Trinidad calypsonians (Spoiler, Blakie, Lord Funny) I had listened to as a young man, and the inclination to humour continued. Also, from my attraction to sardonic British humour, I was an early believer in the value of using comedy to deal with sensitive subjects; the humourous approach would not cause the ripples that the head-on approach would. Humour is part of who I am, so that while it often colours the way I see things in songs (‘Copycats’; ‘Wong Ping’; ‘You Can’t Get’; ‘Women in Love’) it follows me around in my everyday life; I find myself frequently thinking that way.
For instance: on the back window of my casa, facing the desk where I do a lot of writing, there is the usual diamond-shaped metal grille covering, and two birds come there every afternoon around 5 and hang out. They come separately, unusual for birds. One comes, sits on the grille and gives this single-note chirp every four seconds or so, on and on, until the other one shows up, then they stay for quite a while, sometimes doing a kind of bird-snuggling thing, but mostly just hanging out side by side. They’re always backing me,
