Sometimes
It seems
Ignorance conquers all
Knowledge and wisdom fall
Press on
Press on
Don’t give up
Sometimes
It seems
Like peace gone on holiday
And violence come out to play
Press on
Press on
Don’t give up
Sometimes
It seems
Truth will never come to light
Darkness covers all in sight
Press on
Press on
Don’t give up
Don’t give up
Take your burdens on your shoulders
Gird your loins and walk with pride
Yield not your soul to fill your bowl
Better death than live a lie
For they must dry the sea and they must move the sky
Before the righteous spirit die
(lyrics by Shelly Tobitt as performed by Short Shirt, copied from Nobody Go Run Me: The Life and Times of Sir Mclean Emmanuel by Dorbrene O’Marde).
Wadadli Pen 
I stumbled upon your page and must commend you for the effort – you are needed in Culture. Apart from complimenting you on efforts to compile a listing of local songwriters and their works (a herculean task – good luck), I want to assist and correct two things on your page.
First is to give you a short listing of songs written by Lesroy Merchant. Before I do that, however, I did not know that ‘Lesie’ (as he was known by his friends) had passed. I would like to send my belated sympathies to his family and my apologies and regrets for not being there for such a cherished friend. Lesie and I lived on the same street, only a few houses apart and often sat together and talked about songwriting and other things. Many of my early songs were written using Lesie’s guitar. He was a very dear friend. Lesie wrote mainly for Franco, as a matter of fact, it was Lesie who introduced me to Franco and tried to get me to write songs for him. I was very busy at that time hence Lesie wrote the songs for Franco and many times he would have me look at them and asked for my input. May he rest in peace.
My second concern is to correct a passage you wrote in relation to my songs as recorded by Short Shirt.
Your account, taken from Dorbrene’s book :
“Shelly wrote, virtually everything. He also provided ‘base’ melodies. Short Shirt either fine-tuned the melodies or created new ones based on his singing abilities or his own melodic instincts and he helped shaped musical arrangements. He also provided a grounding of Shelly’s lyrics. Shelly was the poet, prone to flights of fancy and fantasy. Short Shirt pulled him back, opting for the ghetto slang or the dialect expression in phrase or sentence.” – p. 81 – 82, Nobody Go Run Me by Dorbrene O’Marde. – is not correct.
Short Shirt had no input in my work except to sing. I am the writer and arranger of my works and provide everything needed to realize a complete production. Back then, before I could write the musical parts for the musicians I needed an arranger to do so, but it was my arrangements that they wrote. I sat with and instructed every arranger I worked with how I wanted the songs, and what rifts and motifs to write. I had not read this section of the book until I saw it on your page, and the account as written is false.
William Shelly Tobitt.
PPS. To prepare for the production of an Album I spent many hours with Short Shirt going over the lyrics and music and musical intonations.I sat with every arranger and go over the arrangements. Short Shirt only sittings were to get the best Key for his voice – that was a definite prerequisite, which sometimes I would do.
Shelly Tobitt
Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Tobitt and for sharing your reflections. Coming of age in Antigua, you and Short Shirt were great inspirations (and teachers) to this future writer. I would love to get your clarifications re song credits – it’s a very hard thing to pin down – so I welcome your input re Mr. Merchant and, of course, your own work. I’ve also been trying to build a lyrics data base here on the site so if you can assist with that as well with regards to your own work, I’d appreciate that (mostly it’s been transcribing and pulling from the few available sources like Dorbrene’s book). Please follow up with me at wadadlipen at gmail dot com Thanks.