by BC Pires

WALKING THROUGH Amsterdam's red light district, where fully legal prostitutes stand scantily dressed in their own shop windows, like flesh-and-blood PlayStations (I hesitate to say, "Xboxes"), lovely things any man who could afford them would want to buy – I was repeatedly struck by how longingly the women looked at me.

I was 35 at the time, just old enough to smirk, "Hey, you still got it!" before realising every man Jack was getting the same lustful looks; and then I didn't know whether to laugh at or cry for myself; I had the same feeling for Barbados week before last.

On Tuesday, November 4, in the midst of all the 'Baracchanal', on Page 4 of THE NATION, below that pretty girl the monkey chased in Licorish village, there he was: Quin Belgrave, winner of the Richard Stoute teen talent contest; a handsome 19-year-old whose stage presence you could sense from a grainy newspaper pic – but what arrested me was the songs he sang to win: Born Free; and My Way. Yes, the winning songs in a teenaged competition in 2008 were Born Free and My Way.

How, I wondered, did Quin persuade himself to pass up The Green, Green Grass Of Home, Tell Laura I Love Her and It's Not Unusual?

Why, if he recorded Galveston, it might shoot to the top of the charts. And that Dutch hooker in her red lingerie from 15-years-ago flashed through my mind.

Was it only me in all of Barbados who noticed that there is practically nobody even alive anymore who was a teenager when Born Free and My Way were teenage songs?

When Barbados' contemporary award-winning rebel music is a Frank Sinatra cover, can anyone be surprised that troubled youths embrace "ZR culture" – minimalist dancehall with sexually explicit lyrics; drug, alcohol and cigarette use; promiscuity; and the reduction of personhood to the body? Or was I missing the point?

Would Fiddy Cent cover My Way on his next CD? (Actually, Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols did – but that was in 1978 – 30 years, a full anthropological generation ago!)

You mean Quin Belgrave couldn't even have done an Ivory tune? Sad Guitar would have made me happier.

More depressing than a young black man winning a teenaged talent contest this month with songs recorded by long dead, old white men (Born Free – 1966, by Matt Monro, dead aged almost 55 in1985; My Way – 1969, by Frank Sinatra dead at age 83 ten years ago!) was the thought that few would see the point.

Wh'appen to he? And the boy sing good? How can you fix a problem when you don't realise you have one?

The function of all art – including teen music – is to hold the mirror up to the society; but, of course, the artist can't make anyone actually look.

* BC Pires is releasing a new single to commemorate the EPA signing: Yes, We Have No Bananas. You may email your fig leaves to him at bc@caribsurf.com