Jeewithe Windinna (Waren Yanna) Lyrics by Daddy

Come along with us
Let’s eat, let’s drink, let’s dream
If there’s no baila I’ll do hip hop, all in my head
Laugh freely, for nothing, no need for it to be real
Calling it money, the young fella gets robbed, picks a fight
I heard about the people just trying to live, and it left me sick
Who hit them in the gut?
Why provoke them?
Acting tough, making the racket of a gang
I saw the ones eating rice with no teeth, and it made me sad
It’s not too late yet, can’t you pull yourself together?
I said it once, if you want a good time, why be a dull fool?

Come along with us
Let’s eat, let’s drink, let’s dream
If there’s no baila I’ll do hip hop, all in my head
Pull on the denim, oil up your hair
Bring out the peacock from your pocket
Five yeses, three noes, that’s enough, grab a girl

To live, here is life..

To live, give us life

Filling your eyes with tears
Why cry all day long?
You loved with your whole self, got tied down, ended up caught

The girls you showed off to the world, the ones who walked out
The promises you saw get made, they turn to lies place by place
Whose fault is the mistake?
Is the law ever one and the same for us?
Some of our own, who tangled it all up with race, ethnicity and caste
Put on the white robe and handed down punishment to the helpless

It’s not too late yet, can’t we change?
I said it once, if you want a good time, why be a dull fool?

Come along with us
Let’s eat, let’s drink, let’s dream
If there’s no baila I’ll do hip hop, all in my head
Pull on the denim, oil up your hair
Bring out the peacock from your pocket
Five yeses, three noes, that’s enough, grab a girl

To live, come on, here, here, take my hand
Get pierced through, find love, give love
So I said it once, take the good time

So what if you die tomorrow?

Come along with us
If you can’t, then stay home
If you can’t take the scolding, you’ll get a beating from your folks
Pull on the denim, oil up your hair
Bring out the peacock from your pocket
Five yeses, three noes, that’s enough, grab a girl

To live……
Here is life…
To live
Give us life
Eat, drink
Let them eat

I said it once, here, get married
Let us hear this too, splash through the mud and dance
Come along with us
Come along with us
Share it out
Take it, eat, drink, come, laugh
Live

This is a Sinhala rap and baila track from Daddy, and it works on two levels at once. On the surface it is a loud, cheeky party song, a voice grabbing you by the arm and pulling you out the door: come with us, let’s eat and drink and dream, pull on your jeans, oil your hair, grab a girl, live a little. “Waren yanna apith ekka” (“come along with us”) is the hook that keeps coming back, and the whole thing is built to make you move and laugh.

But under the party talk there is a sharper edge, and that is what makes the song more than a baila. In the verses the singer drops the joking for a moment and looks at what is going on around him. He talks about ordinary people just trying to get by, the ones “eating rice with no teeth,” meaning the poor and the old who have nothing, and it leaves him sick at heart. He asks who hit them in the gut, why anyone would provoke people who are already down. He needles the young guys who strut around “acting tough,” making noise like a street gang, and he calls out something heavier too: people who twist everything up “with race, ethnicity and caste,” and figures who “put on the white robe and handed down punishment to the helpless,” a jab at those who hide cruelty behind robes and respectability. The line “is the law ever one and the same for us?” is the quiet heart of the protest, the old Sri Lankan complaint that justice bends depending on who you are.

A few images carry local weight. “Bring the peacock out of your pocket” is street slang for showing off, flashing your style or your money to impress, the peacock being the obvious bird that fans out to be admired. “Five yeses, three noes, that’s enough, grab a girl” is the cocky logic of a young man chasing romance, take the wins, shrug off the rejections. And “splash through the mud and dance” (mada gahala ga ganna) is the picture of letting go completely, dancing without caring how you look, the way people do at a real village baila session.

What ties it together is the refrain “jeewath wenna,” to live, and “jeewaya denna,” give us life. The song keeps swinging between the carefree “come eat, drink, dream” and the angry reminder that other people are barely surviving. “So what if you die tomorrow?” is half a dare to enjoy today and half a shrug at how cheap life has become. By the end you are left with that double feeling Daddy is going for, a song you can dance to that has quietly told you the world is unfair, and that the only honest answer is to live fully, share what you have, and not look away from the people getting crushed.