When I woke up this morning got me them Blue Hills blues.
When I woke up this morning got me them Blue Hills blues.
In less than a generation we messed up God’s venues
The Lord gave us them Blue Hills for refuge from the flood.
The Lord gave us them Blue Hills for refuge from the flood
Yet our tractors dragged the hills down, like dogs chew on their food.
The Lord raised up them Blue Hills to lift our eyes unto.
The Lord raised up them Blue Hills to lift our eyes unto.
We gone sell the hills for fill; no change of site in view.
O Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, look what we’re coming to.
O Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, look what we’re coming to.
The more we value money, the less we think of you.
I went to see my best friend and asked to borry a dime.
I went to see my best friend and asked to borry a dime.
Said he, “Until you get financial, you ain’ no friend of mine.”
I went to see my MP in hopes of getting me a job.
I went to see my MP in hopes of getting me a job.
Said he, “You’d best go find your preacher, ’cause that’s what preachers are for.”
I went and caught my preacher talking on the telephone.
I went and caught my preacher talking on the telephone.
Said he, “You’ll have to come back later; must get this lottery won!”
When I woke up this morning got me them Blue Hills blues.
When I woke up this morning got me them Blue Hills blues.
In less than a generation we messed up God’s venues.
•••
Telcine Turner-Rolle was a Bahamian writer best known for authoring the play Woman Take Two, winner of the 1975 Playwriting Prize in the University of The West Indies 25th Anniversary Literary Competition, which she published herself in 1987, and was published again in 1995 by Macmillan Caribbean. She wrote and self published two more books, Song of the Surreys (1977) and Play Me (1994). A graduate of the University of the West Indies, she joined the staff of the newly established College of the Bahamas in 1977. She edited two anthologies of students’ writings, Climbing Clouds and Once Below A Time. After her retirement, she remained an adjunct member of faculty at the College of The Bahamas until her death in May, 2012.
tongues of the ocean 
Caribbean Women Writers Speak | Wadadli Pen
[…] Danielle Boodoo-Fortune’s At Grand Riviere; late Bahamian writer Telcine Turner-Rolle’s Blue Hills Blues; Bahamian Keisha Lynne Ellis’ The Serpent and I – a creative re-telling of the Creation […]