Someone sent me a song this week — proof, I suppose, that this blog is actually being read. The song is “Motorboat Holiday” by the Lazy Californians, and the man behind it pitched it to me as calypso. He’s not wrong, exactly, but he’s not quite right either.
This is calypso the way Harry Belafonte sold it to America sixty, seventy years ago — the postcard version, not the real thing. If you know the genre the way I do, you’ll hear immediately that it doesn’t reach back any further than that. It’s not pretending to be authentic, and to its credit, it doesn’t try.
What it’s actually trying to be is funny, and here it mostly succeeds. The lyrics play a double entendre game that lands exactly where it’s aiming — simple, cheeky, built for a laugh rather than a message. I won’t pretend to judge it as though it wanted to be serious, because it clearly doesn’t.
The playing tells two different stories. The trumpet and flute soloists know what they’re doing — good tone, good technique, genuinely pleasant to listen to on their own terms. The rhythm section is where it falls apart a little; things don’t always lock together, and you can feel the band pulling in slightly different directions underneath the solos.
So: a simple song doing a simple job, carried by two strong soloists and let down a bit by the engine room. Two and a half stars. It made me laugh — I just wish it could also keep time.
Oh, and I like melons too.
