A truck full of song

'I Don't Want to See You Cry' written on way to Ocho Rios

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

I've got to tell you goodbye, babe

And I don't want to see you cry, darling

I'm leaving you behind

But it's just for a time

It's not my wish that we should part

Don't worry baby, I won't break your heart

I'm going to a faraway land

I'm going to make life for you and me, please understand

Don't worry about me when I am gone

Take care of yourself till I return

Don't fret yourself, don't cry too much

I'll soon be back with that magic touch

I Don't Want To See You Cry

- Bob Andy

The website www.bobandy.com states that I Don't Want to See You Cry was originally recorded by Ken Boothe at Studio One, with a 1973 version by Delroy Wilson, then Bob Andy's delivery of his own song released on the album Freely in 1988.

On Sunday, February 19, at the Institute of Jamaica, East Street, Kingston, in an on-stage conversation with TVJ general manager Kay Osborne, Bob Andy was asked about the process of creating some of the many outstanding songs he has written. He referred to a process of 'spontaneous combustion', where the lyrics and melody simply come to him.

Osborne started a moment of combustion with the near-capacity audience at the Institute's lecture hall, singing the first lines of I Don't Want to See You Cry, multiple voices immediately picking up on the song. Before addressing the writing of the song, Andy said "I love folk music, but I am really exposed to American folk music".

"A lot of things, is just the feel," Andy said. And, in speaking to the spontaneity of songwriting, Andy said "here I come and hear my song so fully. My songs, I did not have to write them; they were already written".

finding inspiration

He said that I Don't Want to See You Cry was written in the period when the Soul Vendors became a band. "The band got a job to do the Brown Jug in Ocho Rios," Andy said.

The band members duly packed up their equipment and headed to the north coast town. Andy, who had a job singing with the band, was not with them, as "they left me or I missed the transportation".

Andy had to find his way. "Somehow I got a ride in the back of a truck and it started raining. I and another guy pulled the tarpaulin over us so that we would not get wet," Andy said. The inspiration had come before he left the studio, but the song in its entirety came on that truck ride in the rain.

"On the way to Ocho Rios under the tarpaulin melody and lyrics came to me," Bob Andy said. The spontaneity is key to his confidence in a song. "That is how I recognise a winner," he said. And I Don't Want to See You Cry is a winner.