“Day o! Day o! Daylight come and me wanna go home. Day, me say day-y-y-y!” Rolling over onto my back, I would open my eyes to see my mother loudly singing this song in my bedroom doorway. If I didn’t get out of my bed after making eye contact, she would continue singing in my doorway until I finally did. If I chose to roll back over to get more rest, she would walk over to me and sing even louder into my ear until I stood on my bed and sang along with her. If I tried getting up out of my bed without singing a lyric, she would grab and pull me close to her to dance. As much as I acted like I hated this Saturday morning interaction with my mom, I actually loved it.
Growing up I was a Chess prodigy — okay maybe not a prodigy, but I was really good at playing it! I started taking classes when I was in Kindergarten five days a week after-school, and by third grade regularly attended competitions held at my school and throughout New York City. By the time I was in sixth grade, my parents were really into making Saturday competitions a family activity, otherwise they would be sitting around for eight hours bored out of their minds. My mother singing to wake me up was just the start of their day-long festivities. I, on the other hand, was not so pumped for these weekend competitions because I wanted nothing more than to sleep in. I had to wake up at 7 am on weekdays to get to school on time, so the weekends ideally would be my time to wake up at noon (or later). Instead, I had to wake up even earlier on Saturdays to travel to far away competitions in Brooklyn or Queens.
My mother tried to remedy this by often singing “Day-O (Banana Boat Song).” The best known version was released in 1956 by Harry Belafonte. My mother told me her mother and aunt would sing this song to her when she wouldn’t want to wake up for school. Whenever either of them sang this song to her in the morning, she wouldn’t feel like she was getting ready for school. When I asked her about the song’s origin, she told me she was raised understanding the song was a Jamaican folk song. Researching more about the song, I learned that it was a Jamaican banana work song before it was covered by Belafonte, a Jamaican-American singer also known as “the King of Calypso.” The song’s call-and-response repetition is supposed to represent the monotonous labor of loading banana bunches onto ships in the Caribbean. When the sun starts to rise signaling the beginning of the day, the workers become increasingly eager to leave and go home.
A year after Belafonte released the song, it hit #5 on the Billboard Charts. Decades later it is still recognized as a popular song through covers and samples by artists, and features in movies. The song was sampled by Lil’ Wayne in his song “6 Foot 7 Foot,” released in 2010. When I first heard that song on the radio I got so excited I shared it with my mom, and although she doesn’t like to listen to rap she liked that he sampled the song. One of my favorite movies growing up was Beetlejuice because my school always played it in the auditorium on Halloween. I may be biased, but the best scene for me was when everyone at the dinner party randomly started singing “Day-O” in unison and then got up from the table to dance. Beetlejuice is such a bizarre movie but this scene was light-hearted and incredibly funny (until the end of the dance number when they all get attacked). This scene was also a favorite of mine because it was cool to hear a Jamaican song in an American film.
Reflecting back on this song I am proud and happy that it was a part of my childhood. Such a small gesture, like singing a song in the morning once a week, can really make a difference in reinforcing your culture. Admittedly, I don’t listen to a lot of Jamaican music. Whenever I go to one of my cousin’s parties, I stand to the side and sway to the music because I literally do not know any of the lyrics or choreography to the songs. However, when I visited Jamaica four years ago for a family reunion, my cousins were in the kitchen making dinner when they all started to sing in unison “DAY-O! ME SAY DAY-Y-Y-O!” Smiling, I joined them in song and danced while cutting meat. It feels good to feel connected to your family and culture through music. This song has allowed me to feel closer to my mother, her mother and aunt, and the rest of my family as well.
Got A Million Rhymes 