Ada Ape Thaththa Lyrics by Funky Dirt

Today our father came home
and stamped his foot on the ground
He glared at me, and when he asked his questions
I had no answer to give him

“Who were you with, you rascal, at the bus halt
standing there holding hands?
By the Bo tree junction, near the halt,
that’s where I saw what you were up to”

“Ah, is that it, father? That’s my girl,
she’s going to be your daughter-in-law”
The moment I said “mm”, straight across my cheek
father gave me a blow

Ai ai aiyo, aiyo, mother dear,
look, father’s hitting me
Ai ai aiyo, aiyo, mother dear,
he’s chasing me, run, run, he’s hitting me
(He’s beating me, he’s cursing me,
run, run, father’s hitting me)

Just as my love was taking off and flying
is fate playing a joke on me?
I was sitting pretty, sweet as honey,
why did I get caught by my old man?
So many obstacles for one little love?

Back in his day he sat and stood and
turned and tossed plucking flowers till dawn
(Today our old man doesn’t even have a phone
he stamped his foot and snapped it)

“We aren’t like you lot were in your young days,
we don’t get up to wretched things
And anyway, father, your time was nothing like this,
there was no internet, no Facebook”
(You just stay put)

Ai ai aiyo, aiyo, mother dear…

Hold on, dad, remember the village plays you danced in
when you were a young lad?
If I act like a young man, is that so wrong?
A lover who courted with his collar buttoned up,
turning villain against his son’s love, smashing the palace of my heart,
shouting harsh words till my ears could split
somebody gonna get hurt daddy
nobody get to try to stop me
yes I’m in love with that beauty
no one ever feel guilty
you’re in forties and I’m in twenties
yes I’m ready to face it
however many obstacles come, work it
who can break this heart of ours
will fall in love there’s no exit

Ai ai aiyo, aiyo, mother dear
Ai ai aiyo, aiyo, mother dear
he’s beating me, he’s cursing me
run, run, father’s hitting me

Today our father came home…
Who were you with, you rascal…
Ah, is that it, father? That’s my girl…

This is a comic song, a cheeky father-and-son scene set to a rap beat, and it plays generational conflict for laughs. A young man gets caught by his father holding hands with his girlfriend at a bus halt by the Bo tree junction, the kind of public spot where the whole village can see. The father comes home, stamps his foot, glares, fires off questions, and when the boy can only mumble “mm” before owning up that the girl will be his future daughter-in-law, he gets a slap across the cheek. The “ai ai aiyo, aiyo ammiyo” chorus is the son yelping for his mother to save him while the old man chases him round the house. Anyone who grew up in a Sri Lankan home recognises the sound of it.

The humour, and the real point, is the son talking back. He flips the father’s own youth around on him. Plucking flowers all night (“turning and tossing plucking flowers till dawn”) is a sly way of saying the father did plenty of courting himself back in the day, so who is he to lecture. The boy needles him that his generation had no phones, no internet, no Facebook, and even teases him about the village folk plays (naadagam) he used to dance in as a young lad. The jab about the lover “with his collar buttoned up” mocks the stiff, old-fashioned way the father once romanced, now playing the villain who wants to smash the palace his son has built in his heart for this girl.

By the last stretch the boy drops into defiant English rap, and the joke sharpens into a clear stand: “you’re in forties and I’m in twenties”, “I’m in love with that beauty”, “there’s no exit”. He is not really angry, and neither is the song. It is a young man laughing his way through a beating, insisting that love is love and his father, who was young once too, has no right to stand in the way. Underneath the slapstick is the oldest family argument there is, the parent guarding the child and the child sure he knows his own heart, told here with a wink rather than a tear.