Dance With Gypsies 3 Lyrics by Gypsies

The full moon rises, Moratuwa shines, and Moratuwa is our hometown
The boys of Moratuwa sing happy songs, the girls of Moratuwa dance //

Haven’t you all heard the Gypsy boys singing baila?
The locked-up empty houses swing open on their own
The locked-up empty houses, the locked-up empty houses
The locked-up empty houses swing open on their own

My petals, my blades of grass,
honey jackfruit grove, my Susano
My petals, my blades of grass,
honey jackfruit grove, my Susano

I slipped and fell here in the dark and banged my head on a rock
They lifted me up and rushed me off to the hospital, didn’t they

Madam, my nurse, my madam, I think of you all the time
Madam, my nurse, my madam, you are the princess of the hospital

You gave me the bitter yellow medicine to drink, didn’t you, you gave me the bitter yellow water
Oh my Emily, my darling, tell me the truth, please
You gave me the bitter yellow medicine, didn’t you
That day when daytime turned to night, Emily quickly went to the burial ground
Emily, who was sitting in the dark, jumped up and we ran off, only the gods know the full story

Don’t go, come some more, dance with us tumbling and rolling //

Today my rabana drum is heard, get up, the cart is half loaded, let’s go to Negombo //

Black, jet black, the black one eats sprouts of pathola at night
The one in the house next door is black, the very blackest, they say

Caught sneaking around and getting into mischief, my friend
Why bother with the gossip up and down the lane, my friend //

Aaya of Dompe, our aaya (nanny), through sorrow and comfort she stays with us, our aaya is so sweet
Aaya of Dompe, our aaya, don’t leave me and go away, aaya

Kandy, Hatton, Talawakele, Matara, Trincomalee,
Nuwara Eliya, Badulla, I searched everywhere for an aaya, mate
She wasn’t there and she wasn’t here either, so I searched from Tangalle,
crossed the Nilwala river in Matara and brought one to Colombo

Aaya of Dompe, aaya… oh madam, even if you leave, you stay, aaya

Go to the seaside at Galkissa (Mount Lavinia) and look one Sunday
Go to the seaside at Galkissa and look one Sunday
you won’t believe what you see
There’s the white girl bathing, the white girl’s white fellow is watching
The boys standing off to the side can see it all
The white girl bathes, she winks at the white fellow
If these things get caught, the foreigners get spooked

There’s lame Simaiya… and his son Babbiya
These two are the village’s rogue elephants
He’s called the reader, and grandfather James,
they say the rock is splitting, all elephant-sized lies

You villagers… listen, oh dear, to the sneaky tricks Simaiya pulls
There’s Babbiya… lame Simaiya… in the night they go breaking into house after house

Don’t go, come some more, jump up and dance with us //

A face like a star ringing the rising moon, a love that shines
Because a sweet beetle set up its little cradle of love, my heart got tied up, in my good days
Let’s set our steps to the beat, step by step, joined together in marriage in style
Seeing this, the men and women all glare at us, my fair gem

A garland of coconut shells dropped onto my neck
today our beetle is spinning around on the beach //

I got very scared, I almost lost my life
at midnight I got caught by a ghost //

I had gone to a function to sing songs
I only got to come back at midnight
I came down and turned onto the road toward the cemetery
A huge dog as tall as me chased across the road

I got very scared, I almost lost my life
at midnight I got caught by a ghost

Chuda Manike, we are going off after a look
without greed we lay down a mat and come along //

It was me who washed and ironed the skirts and blouses with water
It was me who brought the hamburgers and pizza for her to eat
And it was me who took a loan and built her a house
But oh, now this giantess says she’s done with me

The kitchen mother Sera…. was in love with one Perera
All the people don’t know what to do
Oh my madam, I need to go back to my village,
please bring and give me my month’s wages

Here I am, here I am, hooked onto my snare, here I am
Here I am, here I am, my beak riveted, here I am

Spotted ox, the trained one… I am Jema the cart driver
This is my half-loaded cart, going at miles per hour
And you lot are trying to go to the moon

Tha rare thara poduda… tha rare thara poduda
Tha rare thara podu… tar patches on the highway….
Tha rare thara poduda
Hey, a little whisky for me… a little brandy whisky for me
Tha rare thara podu… tar patches on the highway….
Tha rare thara poduda

Overturning, the loaded cart overturns
Overturning, the loaded cart overturns
Overturning, the loaded cart
Overturning, the loaded cart
It overturns, the loaded cart overturns ///

This is a baila medley by the Gypsies, the band that more or less defines Sri Lankan party music. Baila is the upbeat, Portuguese-rooted dance music that fills weddings and gatherings across the island, and “Dance With Gypsies 3” is exactly what the title promises: one number after another stitched together so people can keep dancing. It isn’t a single love story or a sad ballad. It’s a run of short, funny, well-known baila scenes, sung in the cheeky, anything-goes spirit the genre is loved for. The whole thing opens with a salute to Moratuwa, the coastal town long treated as the home of baila, where (the song boasts) the boys sing and the girls dance, and even the empty locked-up houses fly open when the Gypsies start to play.

From there it skips through a string of classic comic vignettes that Sri Lankan listeners recognize instantly. There’s the man who slips in the dark, cracks his head on a rock, and ends up in hospital sweet on his nurse, calling her the “princess of the ward” while she feeds him the bitter yellow medicine (kaha sudiya), and a darkly funny twist where his Emily slips off toward the graveyard. There’s the household nanny, the aaya, hunted for all over the country from Kandy to Trincomalee before one is finally found in Tangalle and brought to Colombo, a wink at how middle-class Colombo families used to recruit domestic help from the south. There’s the Mount Lavinia (Galkissa) beach scene poking fun at tourists, the village rogues Simaiya and Babbiya who tell “elephant-sized lies” and rob houses at night, the ghost story of a singer caught at a haunted cemetery at midnight, and the bitter little complaint of a man who washed, cooked, took out a loan and built a house for a woman who now wants nothing to do with him. Each scene is its own joke; the song just hands you one, lets you laugh, and moves to the next.

Part of the fun is how the lyrics mix everyday Sinhala with stray English (nurse, princess, sweet, hamburger, pizza, “you won’t believe what you see”) and with nonsense, sing-along sounds. The “tha rare thara poduda” stretch is mostly playful gibberish built around a small real pun: “thara podu” means the patches of tar on a tarred road, which sets up the closing image of the overloaded bullock cart. That final refrain, “the loaded cart overturns,” is the band laughing at the song itself, a creaking cart piled too high with tunes, tipping over by the end. There’s even a jab at the cart driver who scoffs at people “trying to go to the moon” while he plods along at walking pace.

What holds it all together isn’t a plot, it’s a mood. This is music made to be danced to, with the band openly calling out “don’t go, come some more, dance with us.” If you grew up with it, the medley is a parade of familiar faces and old jokes; if you’re hearing it for the first time, it’s a warm, rowdy snapshot of Sri Lankan humor, the kind of song that turns a room of strangers into a wedding floor.