Someone posted on Bluesky tonight about Robert Mitchum’s brief but baffling career in calypso music, and that put me in mind of someone else whose own career as a calypso singer back in the 50s looks equally baffling now, Louis Farrakhan… or “The Charmer” as he was known before that encounter with Elijah Muhammad in 1955…
Of course, the subject matter— i.e. Christine Jorgensen and her famous sex change—is almost as perplexing as the idea that LOUIS FUCKING FARRAKHAN of all people would be singing about it (I don’t think he’s a big fan of our trans cousins these days). In NINETEEN FIFTY-FUCKING-FOUR to boot. A CALYPSO song on top of that. This was a hell of a thing to be singing about in popular music of the 1950s…
And the B-side is, frankly, almost as perplexing, being a song about zombies, which is another subject you didn’t hear much of in mid-century popular music. Am unaware of Louis’ current opinion of zombies, but I don’t suppose he’s much of a fan of them now either. Even conceding that Farrakhan’s career as a singer only really looks weird in hindsight, these really are peculiar songs…
