Lassana Lokaye Lyrics by Dushan Jayathilake

Tell me, where are you?
I’m searching the whole world over.
Until the day I find you,
I keep going, looking for love.
Always give my heart its peace,
so I’ll never feel alone.

This was given to me by fate.
I wait, watching, until we meet.
Tell me, where are you?
I’m searching the whole world over.
Until the day I find you,
I keep going, looking for love.

In this beautiful world, the love that is mine,
I’m searching for it, my life, erasing the emptiness.
Down the lane lined with flowers, that golden bond of love,
until I find you, I’ll wait.

Are you far away,
or are you right here beside me? Tell me.

Hearing the song I sing,
will you come looking for me?
Tell me, where are you?
I’m searching the whole world over.
Until the day I find you,
I keep going, looking for love.

In this beautiful world, the love that is mine,
I’m searching for it, my life, erasing the emptiness.
Down the lane lined with flowers, that golden bond of love,
until I find you, I’ll wait.
I’ll wait… I’ll wait…
I’ll wait…

A young man is out in the world looking for the one person meant for him, the love he hasn’t met yet but already believes in. He doesn’t know her face or where she is. He only knows she’s out there somewhere, and so he keeps walking, keeps searching, certain that one day the two of them will find each other. That ache of waiting for someone you haven’t even met runs through the whole song.

What makes it tender rather than sad is his faith. He calls this love something fate set aside for him, so instead of giving up he simply waits and watches, trusting it will happen “this time around.” He asks the world to keep his heart calm in the meantime, to keep the loneliness off until she arrives. There’s a sweetness in how patient he is, the kind of patience that comes from believing the right person is real even before you’ve seen her.

The imagery leans on a few gentle pictures a Sinhala listener feels right away. The “lane lined with flowers” (mal mal maawathe) is the soft, hopeful path he imagines walking down once love finally comes, in Sinhala song a flower-filled road stands for a happy life shared with someone. He calls that love a “golden bond” (aadare ran lande), gold being the everyday word for what is most precious and pure, so the love he’s waiting for isn’t a passing crush but something he means to keep. And in the quietest turn of the song he wonders aloud whether she might be far away or already standing right next to him, and whether, if she hears the very song he is singing, she’ll come find him in return.

By the end he isn’t pleading, just promising. “I’ll wait, I’ll wait,” he repeats, softer each time, and you’re left with a young man’s quiet certainty that love is coming and that he is willing to stand and wait for it however long it takes.