Igillila Yanna Yan Lyrics by Chandrika Siriwardena

Let’s fly away, but oh, I have no feathers
Let’s sail the seven seas, but oh, there are no sails, no oars
Let’s go be a king, but oh, there is no crown for the head
So why all this proud, lofty airs?

When the sun god comes up
the empty dew drops slip away and hide
When the moon god comes up
the loneliness of the thick dark is wiped away
In the royal palace and in the little hut
it is only human beings who are born
Not knowing these simple truths,
why does this inhuman behaviour keep rising up?

Let’s fly away…

Here today, will we be here tomorrow
no, not a single one of us knows
Even from a great seven storey mansion
it is the wide earth that we inherit in the end
Differences of opinion, and ill will,
why do we keep carrying them on and on?
We are friends, we are companions
no, no, we will not fall into quarrels

Let’s fly away…

This is a gentle song about being humble and about treating each other as equals. It opens with a string of impossible wishes that quietly poke fun at human pride. Let’s fly away, the singer says, then catches herself, but I have no feathers. Let’s sail across the seven seas, but there are no sails and no oars. Let’s go and be a king, but there is no crown waiting for anyone’s head. Each line sets up a grand ambition and then deflates it with a soft “oh dear” (the Sinhala ane), and the question that follows asks the listener plainly: with all this, why do we put on such proud and lofty airs?

The middle of the song turns to two images from nature to show how small we really are. When the sun god rises, the little beads of dew that looked so bright in the morning quietly shrink away and vanish. When the moon god rises, the loneliness of the deep dark is wiped clean. We are like that dew, here for a moment and then gone, given light and meaning only by something far greater than ourselves. From there the song makes its main point. In the royal palace and in the smallest hut, the same thing is born: a human being. There is no higher and lower kind of person. Forgetting this, the singer asks, why does cruelty and inhuman behaviour keep surfacing among us?

The last verse drives it home with the one truth no one escapes. We are here today, but no one knows if we will still be here tomorrow. Even the owner of a great seven storey mansion inherits the same thing in the end as everyone else: the wide earth, the grave. So why do we keep carrying our disagreements and our resentments on and on? The song’s answer is warm and simple. We are friends, we are companions, and there is no reason for us to quarrel. Underneath the playful opening, it is really a quiet plea for kindness and equality, the kind of lesson a Sri Lankan listener would recognise as rooted in the Buddhist sense that life is short and pride is hollow.