Mage Konde Nethath Inagawata Lyrics by Corine Almeda

My hair doesn’t even reach my waist
My clothes aren’t anything fancy
But my decency is still there
Even if I dyed my hair and cut it short
And dressed in Western style
My decency would still be there //

When I walk down the path to the river crossing, breathless and tired
There’s no young man following my gaze
Rather than hurt many people’s hearts and tie my life to one
I’d rather stay free of all that until I die
My hair doesn’t even reach my waist….

People who keep doing wrong on purpose, who live by lies
When I see them, it makes me really angry
When I meet people who have nothing, when they tell me their sorrow
I feel my own heart go warm for them
My hair doesn’t even reach my waist….

As long as there are people who like to listen to my songs
I’ll keep singing to make them happy
The day I think my fans have dropped off and started to mock me
I’ll do whatever I can and just stay home
My hair doesn’t even reach my waist…//

A woman stands up and tells you exactly who she is, no apologies. She isn’t the kind of beauty people fuss over: her hair doesn’t even reach her waist, her clothes are plain, nothing about her looks expensive. And that is the whole point of the song. She keeps coming back to one line, “my decency is still there,” because she knows what really counts isn’t the length of her hair or the cut of her dress. Even if she dyed her hair, chopped it short, and dressed in the Western fashion, the honest person underneath would not change.

The middle of the song is where she opens up about how she lives. Walking the path down to the river crossing, out of breath and tired, no young man trails after her looking. She says this plainly, almost with a shrug, because she has made her peace with it. She’d sooner stay single and free her whole life than break a string of hearts just to settle down with one person. There’s a quiet strength in that choice, a woman deciding her own terms rather than chasing approval.

Her heart shows itself in what makes her angry and what makes her soft. People who lie and do wrong knowing full well it’s wrong, they get under her skin. But when she meets someone who has nothing, and they share their troubles, something in her warms toward them at once. That contrast tells you everything about her values: she has no patience for falseness, and a real tenderness for anyone who is struggling and honest about it.

She closes on her music, the thing she gives the world. As long as people want to hear her sing, she’ll keep singing to make them happy. But she’s clear-eyed too. The day she feels her listeners have thinned out and turned to mocking her, she won’t cling on or beg. She’ll take whatever small work she can find and quietly go home. It’s a song about dignity, the kind that doesn’t depend on looking pretty, marrying well, or staying famous, but on staying true to yourself right to the end.