Bongo!
It’s all in the offbeat.
Dancefloor quaking beneath the feet
of a Friday night.
Beats ringing from Kingston
and the feel of the Windrush
pushing you on to
Get up! Stand up!
Stand up for your rights!
And though Marley is righteous,
the fight just left you
and you’re smiling instead.
Now Prince Buster’s in your head
and Rico’s in your shoes,
rocksteadying your legs,
man you just can’t lose.
And the walls are sweating
out the regrets
of fifty years of drunken punters
who were shunted outside
to the freezing night air
of a steelheaded town.
No welcome there
except the spirits of sailors
who landed up unlucky
and left behind their DNA
in the heartbeat of the shack
where the beats are black
and no quarter is given
in a town that’s riven
with streetgirls and lager louts
and cast offs and cast outs,
who went home on ships,
tales dripping from their lips
about the the things they saw,
the memories they built,
the legends born
and the blood that was spilt
at Club Bongo International!