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Description
This is a song about an orphan's suffering after the Haiti earthquake of Jan 2010. I wrote it a few days before the New Zealand catastrophe.
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Lyrics
Have You Ever Been To Port-au-Prince?
Copyright Stan Loh, January 28, 2010.
This song was written for the orphans of Haiti after a terrible earthquake on January 12, 2010.
VERSE 1
Have you ever been to Port-au-Prince?
Where the earth stomped out a deadly dance,
Everything crumbled, your palace gone,
I heard the moaning, till the early dawn,
Have you ever been to Port-au-Prince?
Chorus
"Mama, Mama where can you be?
Where is my Papa, where can he be?
Mama, Mama why can’t I see?
Why can’t you call back to me… call back to me?”
VERSE 2
You had twelve months to clear the streets,
Where did the money go, why plastic sheets?
Have they gone to pockets deep unknown?
What are your reasons, what have you shown?
Have you ever lived in self-defeat?
Repeat Chorus
VERSE 3
These shelters of plastic will be my vote,
I cry for better, but the dark death showed,
And the streets ain’t streets, all rubbled stone,
Lost children crying on their own,
Have you ever tasted bloated goats…bloated goats,
Repeat Chorus
Outro
“Oh Mama, Mama please care for me,
I need your love, oh can't you see?
Every morning I beg for food,
The scraps I get just ain’t no good ...ain’t no good,
Ain’t no good ...ain’t no good.”
Copyright Stan Loh, January 28, 2010.
This song was written for the orphans of Haiti after a terrible earthquake on January 12, 2010.
VERSE 1
Have you ever been to Port-au-Prince?
Where the earth stomped out a deadly dance,
Everything crumbled, your palace gone,
I heard the moaning, till the early dawn,
Have you ever been to Port-au-Prince?
Chorus
"Mama, Mama where can you be?
Where is my Papa, where can he be?
Mama, Mama why can’t I see?
Why can’t you call back to me… call back to me?”
VERSE 2
You had twelve months to clear the streets,
Where did the money go, why plastic sheets?
Have they gone to pockets deep unknown?
What are your reasons, what have you shown?
Have you ever lived in self-defeat?
Repeat Chorus
VERSE 3
These shelters of plastic will be my vote,
I cry for better, but the dark death showed,
And the streets ain’t streets, all rubbled stone,
Lost children crying on their own,
Have you ever tasted bloated goats…bloated goats,
Repeat Chorus
Outro
“Oh Mama, Mama please care for me,
I need your love, oh can't you see?
Every morning I beg for food,
The scraps I get just ain’t no good ...ain’t no good,
Ain’t no good ...ain’t no good.”
mrattue
Beautifully supported with very effective and different harmonies, and nice harmonica, too.
The subject is a bit raw for me, just imagining the things you evoke i can't take in, can't cope with even visualising it.
Just can't take tragedy these days for some reason, got to live in a dream world, a musical nether space. Some would call it being close to God, some would call it self-delusion, but i hide in its embrace, and shelter there against the terrors of the world.
Good song, all the same, but i flee from it.
Marc