Kello Kollo Me Degollo Lyrics by Billy Fernando

These days, for the girls and the boys,
love has gone straight to their heads //
Girls and boys, the two of them //
in love, in love, in love… flowers in bloom

If they miss each other at church on Sunday,
then it’s the temple on Poya day…

If they miss each other at the temple on Poya,
it’s over by Galle Face in the evening,
and if they miss each other at Galle Face in the evening,
then back to church on Sunday.

If they miss each other at church on Sunday,
then by the rock, behind the rock…

At the Hindu temple, the Kadira kovil,
in the middle of the procession and the beat of the drums.

The thambili and king coconut, the gram cart,
there isn’t even room to stand.

It’s like the pavement is packed with goods piled up,
the perfect crowd for falling in love.

This is just how it is these days, standing right there,
we do our loving out on the street.

This is a cheeky, comic song about how young couples date in Sri Lanka today. There is no heartbreak or longing here, just a grinning narrator poking fun at how romance has spilled out into every public corner of the country. The opening line says it best: love has “gone to the head” of the girls and the boys, an everyday Sinhala way of saying they have completely lost their minds over each other, and the silly “lova lova lova” and “flowers in bloom” set the playful tone right away.

The joke runs through a list of all the places a young couple turns up. If they miss each other at church on Sunday, they will catch up at the Buddhist temple on Poya day, then at Galle Face green in the evening, then back at church the next Sunday. The humor is in the religious mix-and-match: church, temple, and then the Kadira kovil (a Hindu temple, here in the middle of a perahera with its drums and procession). The couple is not there to worship, they are there to meet, and the song winks at how every religious festival and crowd has quietly become a dating spot.

Then come the very Sri Lankan street details that an outsider would miss. Thambili and kurumba are king coconut, sold for their sweet water at roadside carts, kadala is the spiced gram (chickpeas) you snack on, and Galle Face is Colombo’s seafront green where couples have always strolled. Saying “there isn’t even room to stand” by the coconut and gram carts, and that the pavement is “packed like goods piled up,” paints the picture of crowded city streets so full of young lovers that there is no space left.

The last line lands the whole point with a shrug and a smile: this is just how it is these days, we do our loving right out on the street. It is gentle social satire, a song that teases a generation for wearing its romance in public, at the temple, at the kovil, at the seaside, everywhere, without a trace of the old shyness.