If so­ca star Neil “Iw­er” George’s use of the Na­tion­al An­them in his Car­ni­val 2024 song, Hap­py Peo­ple, was in­tend­ed to in­spire pa­tri­o­tism, it is in­stead hav­ing a po­lar­is­ing ef­fect.

Since its re­lease on YouTube last Fri­day, the song has sparked con­tentious de­bate, with strong opin­ions for and against. Re­ac­tions have ranged from con­fu­sion to out­rage, par­tic­u­lar­ly on so­cial me­dia, where some com­men­ta­tors ad­mit­ted they didn’t know whether to stand at at­ten­tion or gy­rate when they heard the open­ing lines.

Mr George sings the en­tire Na­tion­al An­them at the start of the song, speed­ed up and in­ter­spersed with “well, well, well”, strip­ping it of the re­spect and solem­ni­ty with which it should be ren­dered as the na­tion’s pre­mier pa­tri­ot­ic mu­si­cal com­po­si­tion.

In fact, the words of the Na­tion­al An­them make up a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the song, which, ac­cord­ing to the cred­its, George co-wrote with Ken Mar­lon Charles (KMC). There­after, the artiste launch­es in­to full fete mode, with "send dem Tri­nis hands in de air ..."

Those words erase any doubt about the au­di­ence and oc­ca­sion for which Hap­py Peo­ple is in­tend­ed. It is a par­ty song, a po­ten­tial Road March con­tender with which George has made a con­tro­ver­sial en­try in­to the 2024 Car­ni­val sea­son.

The in­tent is for it to dom­i­nate playlists through­out the fete sea­son on oc­ca­sions of drink­ing, danc­ing and types of be­hav­iour not ap­pro­pri­ate for a song that should in­stead be evok­ing more sober re­flec­tion on the his­to­ry and tra­di­tions of this na­tion.

In the event that Hap­py Peo­ple makes it to the streets for the Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day's Pa­rade of the Bands, will all pro­to­cols that should be ap­plied to the Na­tion­al An­them be com­plete­ly dis­card­ed?

That would be a far cry from the set­ting in which it was first played, on Au­gust 31, 1962 at the Red House, right af­ter the of­fi­cial open­ing of T&T’s First Par­lia­ment.

Mr George’s ap­pro­pri­a­tion of the Na­tion­al An­them for a so­ca song is a bad idea on many lev­els and in ex­treme­ly poor taste.

It is al­so not a fit­ting rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the work of the late Patrick Castagne, who could not pos­si­bly have en­vis­aged his words and mu­sic be­ing put to such use.

There are pro­to­cols to be fol­lowed for play­ing the Na­tion­al An­them. In ad­di­tion, there are cer­tain eti­quettes to be ob­served, all of which are like­ly to be flout­ed every time Hap­py Peo­ple is played.

Like all of T&T’s oth­er na­tion­al sym­bols, this work should be treat­ed with the great­est re­spect. De­vi­a­tions like Mr George’s new so­ca re­lease should not be con­doned, no mat­ter how well mean­ing.

This in­ci­dent is a re­minder of a dis­cor­dant note sound­ed at the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny for Car­ifes­ta XIV, which was host­ed here in T&T in 2019.

On that oc­ca­sion, then Pres­i­dent Paula Mae Weekes was crit­i­cal of the “un­ac­cept­able ren­di­tion” of the Na­tion­al An­them, which she said “must be sung in its orig­i­nal mu­sic; no in­tro­duc­tion or co­da can be added or oth­er artis­tic li­cence tak­en in its ren­di­tion.”

Once again, there is in­tense dis­cus­sion about the artis­tic li­cence tak­en in the per­for­mance of the song.

How­ev­er, this time around, a line has been crossed and Mr George, a vet­er­an en­ter­tain­er with decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in the mu­sic busi­ness, should take im­me­di­ate steps to cor­rect this of­fence.