Panama
CULEBRA CUT...PANAMA CANAL PACIFIC COAST SIDE
September 7, 1977 - Carter gives Canal back to Panama
“In the year 2001 we’re gonna give Panama back to everyone “
Sept. 7, 1977 President Jimmy Carter signs a treaty that will give Panama control over the Panama Canal beginning in the year 2000. It was in the papers. I was thinking how did we come to have it in the first place. All isthmuses (or is it isthmi?) are strategic. This one is no different. Digging a channel that would join the Atlantic and Pacific would be world altering, like changing the currents and the winds. Hmmmm. Sounds promising. Theodore Roosevelt picked up after the French. Like Vietnam. Diem Bien Phu. Had to make a land Deal. The Art of the Deal. Big Stick. How ‘bout we use the same rational we used for land grabs in the Continental US. Called annexations. Texas was one. Hawaii and Alaska. This power is in the Constitution. So he annexed Panama from Columbia when Columbia wouldn’t sign a Treaty (Hay-Bunau-Varilla). The Treaty would have ceded over the land needed for a canal. Like controlling a critical valve in world plumbing. Control the flow. Apply pressure. Oppose sovereignty. Exploit resources. Like bananas. Also a fun word to say. Like Panama. Big Navy. Big stick. No muss/no fuss imperialism. No occupation required. Just the threat of shock and awe. Underlying message... you lose your freedom but you are a de facto partner in the blessing of civilization. And receive its bounty. Take communion. Big win.....
To justify this type of imperial action, behold this made to order fiction.... Meet Manifest Destiny. She’s a fifty foot milky skinned white chick. She looks to be wearing a toga. American classic. A little provocative.....You can call her Destiny. The wind is in her hair and blowing some of her clothes off. Her shoulders are bare. A little cleavage. The news from the ground is she is a gal with a mission. She carries a SCHOOL BOOK. Is she a teacher on the way to a little red school house on the prairie? Those on the ground...a bunch of Indians with their dog look to be fleeing. Other groundlings...prospectors, some farmers, a covered wagon full of adoring settlers.... smiling up safe in her shadow..... as though to say “keep it up baby...you are the only show in town....you got the buffalo on the run.... and the redskins are terrified.” And here’s the clincher.....Destiny is also the Wichita Linesman....she has a coiled spool of wire in her left hand....and she’s laying down the telegraph road as she bestrides the west like a colossus. Calendar girl for AT&T. The original invasion of the Fifty Foot Woman. Trailing blond ringlets hanging down....she gazes vacantly into the distant completely unaware of the havoc she is wreaking and the sensation she has caused. Go West Young Man. Once she got to the coast she was redirected to points south. Panama needed inspiration. She heard about the beaches and the peaches. And tanning. And she liked saying it. Panama. So Destiny headed south. She liked the sound of bananas too. She set up a club in the Canal Zone. Easy to be bicoastal. It’s only fifty miles from Atlantic to Pacific.
“Panama, I hear you calling out to me.”
“Panama, bulwark of democracy....”
“Panama, from sea to shining sea...”
“Panama, Manifest Destiny...”
They said no one could get this in a song. But I leapt into the breach. Life is a breach.
I traveled in South and Central America during Carter’s administration and he was making great strides to mending the American image. The international performance group Project Troubadour played this song in small towns throughout the Americas. Panama was a chorus everybody could sing and recognize. In singing it they saw themselves a little bit. A reaching out. That what songs do.
The name “Panama” itself comes from an old indigenous word meaning abundance of fish.
And this song proved to be some good bait. Let’s face it....trying to sell a song was like fishing. When you were trying to sell songs it was called shopping. Record companies had their own publishing arms. Warner Chapelle, EMI, MCA, Columbia, Famous....and a host of others. When you shopped your tunes you went for double exposure....the performance which was you performing your hit tune in an unforgettable fashion. Selling yourself as the recording artist. And or selling your tune because somebody was looking for a tune that would fit an existing artist. Like I have a perfect tune for U-2 or the Stones. Chances of you getting someone at that level is pretty dim unless they are going out with your sister or you just happened to get their cat out of a tree. So after you go to the trouble and expense of recording PANAMA you need someone ... in my day it was a lawyer. Mine was called Bob Flax. He knew a guy who bought songs at MCA/ now Geffen-Universal and MCA had signed Tom Petty and Jimmy Buffet and Bob’s friend Mike Millius who thought PANAMA might work for somebody like that. I think Mike listened to 4 of my CI demoes. And he liked “I Need A Wish” and “Panama”. When I came in the first time I was floored because he thought I sounded “black”. Kept repeating my name Compton Maddux, Compton Maddux over and over. Shaking his head. It was a huge compliment for me. But I think it cut me as an artist on his roster. I would have been an easier sell as a black guy. I could be wrong. But all was not lost. He liked the songs. You can’t always be everything. And songwriter was an ok outcome too.
I was excited. I went back to my lawyer and I got some really bad advice. Mike offered me $1200 for the two tunes. In return he would have the publishing to the tunes for a five year term. I would retain the writer’s fee which was 50% of the pie. It was a 50-50 split. Typical and the $1200 was like a bonus. Bob nixed it. Said Mike should give me more. I told Mike and this is what he said...”It’s a good deal. If you don’t want it I’ll buy somebody else’s song.” I sat there like a dummy....I wished I had my dad there or anybody’s dad for that matter with me to give me good advice. So while I was sitting there blinded in the headlights he also said.... “You think you are going to write more songs (pause)......better songs? Than these....” And of course I said...”of course...” But I stall. And the interest which is born of instinct goes south for lack of trust. Somebody who’s been there has got to tell you that. Good advice .
There are three major publishing companies now. Sony/ATV, Universal and Warner Chapelle, Kobalt and EMI. They own 100’s and thousands of songs. They don’t buy much music. They are still trying to sell the songs they bought 20 years ago. Most artists think they can write their own songs. And PANAMA... a fun, pretty smart topical political ditty now has been sitting unsung and lonely in the archives with its brothers and sisters...
Still I have sung it all over the world and watched lips and mouths form the words on dance floors and in town squares....And it is the BLOG that enlivens them in the air once more...
“In the year two thousand...2004/
the people of Panama are ready for more
PANAMA. I hear you calling out to me
PANAMA. From sea to shining sea
On a lighter note, songwriters look for validation. In 1984 the Band Van Halen had a hit single from the album 1984 called PANAMA. It was released as a seven inch single and the B-side was Drop Dead Legs. Here be a little sampling of that lyric ....
Jump back, what's that sound
Here she comes, full blast and top down
Hot shoe, burnin' down the avenue
Model citizen zero discipline
Don't you know she's coming home with me?
You'll lose her in the turn
I'll get her!
Panama, Panama
Panama, Panama
I am quite sure that Van Halen got the idea from me. The main chorus “Panama. Panama” sounds exactly the same. “Full blast top down” that’s a dead ringer for my gal Manifest Destiny, wouldn’t you say?. “Hot shoe.” She ain’t wearin' any. The tunes are fishy similar and I think they must have heard it when I was in Guatemala in 1979 playing the town square in Patzun. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. I’ll take it. After all I didn’t get the $1200. You’ll be happy to know I stuck with Bob Flax though he was costing me money and we went on to produce the epic novelty single CLONE OF MYSELF - Stay tuned. Coming to da blog. Thanks for listening. And reading. Multitasking good.
Panama
By Compton Maddux
Well in the year two thousand… 2001
We’re gonna give Panama back to everyone
Everybody’s gonna laugh and they’ll dance in the streets
They’re getting hip to those American beats
From the deep Amazon to the Argentine beaches
Everybody wants a piece of Panama’s peaches
Panama I hear you calling out to me
Panama bulwark of democracy
Panama from sea to shining sea
Well in the year two thousand… 2003
Everybody in Panama’s gonna be free
Little Angelina going down to the Disco
Pepe got religion so he moved to San Francisco
From the deep Amazon to the Argentine beaches
Everybody wants a piece of Panama’s peaches....
I hear you calling out Panama
I hear you calling out to me Panama
Panama bulwark of democracy
Panama from sea to shining sea
Well in the year two thousand...2004
The people of Panama are ready for more
A color tv, Wonder Bread and Coca-Cola
McDonald’s bought the franchise from Pepe’s hot frijoles
From the deep Amazon to the Argentina Beaches
Everybody wants a piece of Panama’s peaches
I hear you calling out
Panama I hear you calling out to me
Panama bulwark of democracy
Panama from sea to shining sea
I hear you calling out
Panama
Panama
Panama
From sea to shining sea
Panama I hear you calling out to me
Panama from sea to shining sea
Panama Manifest destiny
Panama
1978
Players:
Compton Maddux - Lead Vocal, Acoustic Guitar
Dave Conrad - Bass
Paul Kimbrough - Drums
John Moses - Electric Guitar
Kinny Landrum - Keyboards
Eliot Osborn & Margo Covington - Backing Vocals
Produced by Dave Achelis & Compton Maddux
Engineered by Dave Achelis
Recorded at CI Studios, West 57th, NY, NY
24 track production, Medium: 2” AMPEX - 30 ips
Board SSL
