The deep and mysterious affinity that many Irish people have with Trinidad and Tobago, a feeling expected to peak at 5pm today, must be at least partly attributable to music. In particular, it is surely inspired by Trinidad's greatest cultural export - Calypso - with its strong echoes of Ireland's old bardic tradition, writesFrank McNally
A term meaning "work song", Calypso originated among African slaves in the Caribbean who, forbidden to speak to each other, communicated instead through music. Workers in the fields would divide into competitive groups and exchange songs of derision.
But at night in their huts the lyrical insults were redirected, at their masters. By the time slavery was abolished, the topical-song genre was so well established in Trinidad that it continued as a favourite means of spreading news, gossip, and criticism of the colonial administration.
Writing in 1939, at the height of the "Golden Age of Calypso", the New Yorker's Joseph Mitchell noted that many top Calypsonians were veterans of the island jails. He added: "Some of their songs are based on sensational news stories - a bedroom murder, a switchblade fight between two prominent madams, the suicide of a concupiscent white English woman. [ Others] deal with abstract matters like love, honour, man's fall, the wisdom of marrying a woman uglier than you, or the question of which has the most ache in it, a rum hangover or a gin hangover."
But Calypso also had a strong political element. Nervous British colonial officials scanned all lyrics for obscenity or subversion, sometimes banning a song and jailing the singer. Top 1930s performers like "The Growler" and "Attila the Hun" (Mitchell wrote that most Calypsonians adopted titles "to set themselves apart from lesser men") had done time for criticising the administration. The authorities had mixed feelings about the music, however. At Mardi Gras, they also put up prizes for the best songs, as did many companies, whose merchandise would be mentioned by the singers.
The nakedly commercial aspect of Calypso - shades of the bardic tradition here - also sometimes brought trouble from the law, especially for those who wrote "blackmail songs". Mitchell again: "Such a singer will learn an embarrassing fact about a prominent Trinidadian and write a song about it; then he will go to the man and offer to forget the song for a few dollars. Sometimes, after he has been paid off, he will sing it in the cafés and rum shops anyway, just for the hell of it." The Calypsonian's particular ethic allowed him to steal anything from a colleague, except a song. This arrangement was underwritten by mutual contempt between composers. Like modern-day rappers, the great Calypso singers competed against each other on stage, improvising insults about their rivals' ugliness or impure morals. The disrespect continued off-stage.
And yet the most famous Calypso song of all contains no insults, or political messages. It simply expresses the weariness of a dock-worker waiting for the "tally-man" to come and "tally me banana" so that he can clock off from the night-shift.
"Day-o, Day-a-a-o!" he sings; "Daylight come and me want go home." The Banana Boat Song belongs to the Jamaican folk tradition, but was first recorded by a Trinidadian, before being made famous by Harry Belafonte in 1956. It has been lampooned many times. And in light of this evening's events, it seems significant that, back in 1988, I heard an improvised version sung on the streets of Stuttgart within hours of Ireland's 1-0 defeat of England.
"Ray-o, Ray-a-a-o! Ray-o score and de Brits go home," sang the Irish supporters, who had suddenly developed Caribbean accents. Of course, Ireland was a banana republic (without the bananas) then. And the innocent joy of those plantation workers was short-lived: despite Ray Houghton's heroics, the Irish and English went home at the same time.
Coming back to today's match, it appears England will again leave Wayne Rooney on the bench, and the question of whether they can tally their bananas without their talisman remains in doubt. Seeking scapegoats, some English fans have blamed Margaret Thatcher for the tendency of players to break toes on the eve of major championships - specifically because of her notorious decision, as Edward Heath's education secretary, to stop giving free milk to school children.
This is a bit harsh. The actions of "Thatcher the milk-snatcher", as she became known, may well have condemned a generation of English kids to fragile metatarsals. But the inconvenient truth is that free milk was restored at the end of the 1970s, before most of the current team were born.
At worst, Thatcher's policy could be indicative of a general English disregard for the importance of calcium in bone formation that has come back to haunt them. Should Trinidad and Tobago "get a result" today, however, Calypsonians may want to incorporate the milk-snatch angle into any commemorative songs. In this regard, it may be worth noting that the bill withdrawing free school milk passed its second stage in the House of Commons, sparking weeks of protest across Britain, on this very date - June 15th - in 1971.