submissions
| Desmond Dekker – Israelites Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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A knowledgeable friend (Luke Ehrlich, the "White Ram") tells me that I incorrectly interpreted "trouser a-go." He writes: it's "trousers a geow". "Geow" is a verb that means "to make uncomfortable" / "to be bothersome", usually physically, but sometimes socially as well. "Rockstone inna me shoe a-geow (me)" = There's a pebble in my shoe that's really bothering me. This how I heard it used, but the Jamaican-English Dictionary spells it "gyou" and states other meanings altogether: as a noun = falsehood, pretentiousness -- as a verb = to act pretentiously. They also say it's of Scottish origin. Perhaps, like many words it passed into Jamaican slang with a different meaning. Maybe Dekker's saying "my pants are a joke (falsehood)" (sort of like how we say, "Man, you're living a lie" ?) |
submissions
| Desmond Dekker – Israelites Lyrics
| 11 years ago
|
|
The line about not wanting to "end up like Bonnie and Clyde" is preceded by "Shirt-dem a tear up, trousers a-go" which means his shirts are torn up and his trousers are going. He doesn't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde in the last scene of the movie when they (and their clothes) were torn to shreds by a rain of bullets. |
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