The Tide is here. “Here we all are,” says song­writer/vo­cal­ist Tri­cia Lee Kelshall. “Every creed and race, on the same trip, on the same ship, here we recog­nise the pow­er of both our col­lec­tive and in­di­vid­ual fragili­ty…the stuff of your best ter­ri­fy­ing sci­ence fic­tion movie or worst night­mare”

Here in Trinidad with­out her hus­band, Ralph By­noe, who is stuck in Mi­a­mi be­cause of the bor­ders be­ing closed, the pop­u­lar en­ter­tain­er col­lab­o­rat­ed with renowned mu­si­cian Nigel Ro­jas to pen The Tide. The sin­gle was pro­duced by Ran­dom De­signs Stu­dios and fea­tures key­boardist Phil Hill and Ro­jas on gui­tar.

Said Kelshall, “Here I found my­self in my home­land Trinidad to wit­ness an un­script­ed apoc­a­lyp­tic pause in all of our lives. This pause in­clud­ed a pow­er­ful so­cial move­ment as hearts and souls cried out to be heard. This pre­cip­i­tat­ed by oth­er move­ments by brave women, speak­ing out to bring about change. We are liv­ing in a tu­mul­tuous time and this mo­ment will be record­ed in his­to­ry and we all are play­ing a part.

“As our bor­ders closed here in Trinidad, I was faced with a choice, my hus­band or my par­ents; who need­ed me the most? My hus­band chose for me and gave me the gift of send­ing me home to be here with them. We re­main sep­a­rat­ed by this mon­ster virus and al­though we speak every day, noth­ing re­places the warmth and com­fort of phys­i­cal pres­ence. My hus­band is a man among men and all who know him will agree. Ral­phie, I miss you.”

Mus­ing, Kelshall said, “The days passed by, we all count­ed them to­geth­er…days of the week no longer had names…punc­tu­at­ed on­ly by the dai­ly brief­in­gs telling us of our fate. Anx­i­ety swept through the emp­ty streets un­seen, like the dread­ed virus it­self but pen­e­trat­ing in­to every home to sit there as we worked our way through sleep­less nights.”

Un­fazed by the flood of racist rants on so­cial me­dia, Kelshall prides her­self in be­ing an “un­yield­ing pa­tri­ot.” She said, “In this glob­al pan­dem­ic, we have stood to­geth­er as a na­tion; our broth­er’s keep­ers, with dis­ci­pline and re­spect for each oth­er. We sud­den­ly had Time in a world that was mov­ing too fast, fight­ing the fairest fight, on a lev­el play­ing field, the fight for sur­vival; our on­ly tools, a mask, soap, sani­tis­er and com­mon sense.”

Aside from writ­ing, Kelshall oc­cu­pied her­self with oth­er stay-at-home recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ty. “My­self, along with all my fel­low lo­cal artistes, won­dered at our fu­ture, when we fi­nal­ly emerged. I im­me­di­ate­ly went out and bought paint and can­vas and lost my­self tem­porar­i­ly in my art­work. I am qui­et­ly thank­ful for this tiny break from a ridicu­lous­ly heavy per­for­mance sched­ule in the Unit­ed States, cou­pled with reg­u­lar trips home to per­form at cor­po­rate events. I was grate­ful to be able to fo­cus on my daugh­ter and fam­i­ly for a bit.

“As the days passed and my head cleared, re­al­i­ty set in. Locked down, not just stay at home but ca­reer lock­down. It was in this mo­ment that song­writ­ing, once again, be­came my sal­va­tion. Song af­ter song, idea af­ter idea. I re­fused the no­tion that it didn’t make sense with nowhere to per­form it or funds to record and mar­ket suc­cess­ful­ly. I wrote any­way. I record­ed any­way. In the small space where we all felt a lit­tle safer, once more, to be near to oth­ers, I de­cid­ed that in this pe­ri­od of un­cer­tain­ty, I had no plans of leav­ing any stone un­turned.

“It has been years since Nigel Ro­jas and I toyed with the idea of work­ing to­geth­er; no bet­ter time. We met, he played the song on his gui­tar, I record­ed it on my phone and went home wrote my part, and we set about get­ting it pro­duced. Nigel’s pas­sion in his writ­ing is what has al­ways caught me, his left field hooks and ideas; with him a song is nev­er pre­dictable. He gave me my space to put my own spin on his very COVID 19es­que tune. ‘We walk the cor­ri­dors of time, The vul­tures sweep­ing down and eat­ing us alive…’

“My­self, be­ing a ‘glass half full’ per­son, I want­ed to bring the sug­ges­tion of hope. To his strug­gle, I brought the war­rior.

“This is a song about where we are as a peo­ple, in a state of evo­lu­tion—‘On the wire, heartache for hire, fear will feed the game, They turn away, noth­ing to say and it goes on Un­named…’

“I think Nigel is one of the coun­try’s un­sung tal­ents, ge­nius lev­el, and it was a dream come true for us both pro­duc­ing this deeply per­son­al piece which echoed a very much larg­er voice. I think it re­al­ly cap­tures the mo­ment, no mat­ter what your plat­form.

“As we lis­tened, im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter my last take in the vo­cal booth, I looked to Nigel…shocked along with him at the emo­tion­al im­pact it had on us both. He sat there with tears run­ning down his face. It was a mo­ment that I will keep for­ev­er.”

The Tide is a big tune, it’s epic, It’s Now, Kelshall said, “It’s beau­ti­ful and to me not a just a great song but a piece of art. It was cre­at­ed from deep de­spair and a re­fusal to be silent. It’s a Fight Song. One from deep deep in­side your weary soul. To­geth­er we stand! I hope to do many more pieces along­side Nigel. With so much ma­te­r­i­al stock­piled there will be lots to fol­low.”