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Wake me up with Parang

Proud and playful Trinidadian parang is a joyful genre of Caribbean folk music.

Parang is a staple of the Christmas season in Trinidad, Tobago and Venezuela. When parang performers regularly start their singing before sunrise and sing LOUDLY to rouse their friends from their beds. This video from Lopinot, Trinidad, introduces us, gloriously, to Trinidadian parang standard, “Rio Manzanares.” (We LOVE this.) In All Around This World classes we give our all to another parang song, “Ola de la Mar.”

 

The waves are my salvation like the sun, the moon and stars


“Ola de la Mar,” a Trinidadian “parang” song, most often sung in the middle of the night or in the early morning – loudly! – and most often in the Christmas season. The lyrics of the All Around This World sing of a sailor who savors the freedom of the vast, open sea: Ola de la mar, Ola de la mar, The ocean is forever, like the sun, the moon and stars, Ola de la mar, ola de la mar, The waves are my salvation, like the sun, the moon and stars….”