Hurricane School - Lyrics and Inspiration

You like to learn how to put them FEET TOGETHER now You want them dancing something cool Be jumping quick now to FIND your answer You go Caribbean to JUMP in they pool You got to HURRY DOWN to Hurricane School, now NOT TODAY, TSUNAMI NOT TODAY TSUNAMI You got to hurry, got to RUN RUN RUN RUN EVERYBODY MOVE at the hurricane school, now DON’T YOU WORRY baby, fun fun fun fun! You HELICOPTER ‘time you stepping on the tarmac Now you learning, baby, SPINNING right round round TUMBLING right through the wave wave wave wave Now WASHING PAPAH to the thunder sound sound (Chorus)

You DOMINO and you KNOCKIN’ them RIGHT BACK LEANIN' it backward, darlin LEANIN’ it in in You PET THE DOGGIE that be sniffing your bag bag Now GRINDIN’ COFFEE to stay out of the pen pen (Chorus) Do you really want to move to that beat, now? Really need that kind of sun sun sun, sun? Them there gonna make you somehow No need to reach that destination! (Chorus)

Copyright 2023 Brightwood Clay. Recorded at Beaird Studios, Nashville.

Inspiration

The weekly challenge in my writer's group was to write something to the theme of "Dance." Hurricane School was inspired by my travels in the Caribbean and the unique experience of small island airports. Island travel can be an exotic experience, with a seemingly chaotic dance of bustling travellers, small regional airstrips and a degree of organized chaos. The atmospherics made it all too easy to imagine yourself the subject of scrutiny, with dogs sniffing bags, suspicious agents eyeing passengers carefully, an official keeping your papers a beat too long … the perfect setting for "caper"-themed story.

Having grown up on shows about the drug trade, it was easy to craft a story about a hapless American who is danger of falling in with the wrong crowd. The character singing the song is a (purely fictional!) drug trafficker who is recruiting Americans to come down to the Caribbean and learn the drug trade "if they really want to learn how to dance." It's a kind of macho dare. He is like a Caribbean used car salesman, urging you to “hurry down to the Hurricane School ” to get rich quick. On doing some internet research, I found out that "Washin" Papah" means money laundering, "Grindin coffee" refers to attempting to disguise the smell of contraband. (Again, this was purely for research purposes, e.g., writing lyrics and getting into the character).

The voice of reason gets a part in the trafficker's advertisement, saying "Not Today Tsunanami!" and then breaks completely through the message for a moment, urging common sense: “Do you really need that kind of sun sun sun sun? / Them there gonna make you somehow/ No need to reach that destination!”

Hurricane School is a cautionary tale about enjoying the beauties of travel while avoiding the potential pifalls that the unwary could fall into.

The refrain came from a fellow traveler living on an island with her family when the local tsunami alarms sounded. Home alone with her two small babies, she found the battery of her vehicle dead, so she grabbed her bicycle, buckled one baby into the child seat, clutched the other under her arm, and peddled like crazy up the nearest hill. As she told the story in a hilarious deep Southern drawl, she wagged her finger, and goes, "NOT TODAY TSUNAMI!". It was just the funniest thing.

Hurricane School is both a song and a dance: The finger wag is the dance move for the “not today” refrain. You can make up dance moves for the rest. Whirl your arms in a circle for helicopter, do a scrub-a-dub move for "Washin' Paper"(money laundering), grind coffee in the air, and you know what to do for pet the doggie.