Romeo

Don’t you go becoming a Romeo,
I cannot be a Juliet,
however much I love you,
I cannot die for the sake of love

Must you always be near?
all of loving, every single day,
even when not near, just seeing you smile from afar,
and building instead a heart that can find its peace,
rather than dying in the name of love, what would be the point?

Must you die at all?
weeping and wailing when a love is lost,
or, never having won love even once,
living joyfully with a heart that has heard love’s secret,
in the name of love, let us live on instead

A refreshingly wise love song, sung in a woman’s voice, that gently refuses the most famous love-tragedy of all. Don’t you become a Romeo, she tells him, because I cannot be a Juliet, and however deeply she loves him, she says plainly, I cannot die for the sake of love. From the first line it sets itself against the romance-as-death ideal.

The middle reasons tenderly with him. Must love always mean being side by side? Even apart, she says, simply seeing him smile from a distance, and building a heart that can find its peace, is worth far more than dying in love’s name, what, she asks, would be the point of that?

The last verse states the song’s whole philosophy. Rather than weeping and wailing when a love is lost, or, worse, never winning love and giving up, she chooses the harder, braver thing: to live joyfully with a heart that has heard love’s secret, and, in the name of love, let us live on instead. Sung by Kalpana Kavindi, composed by Tharindu Damsara to words by Lakshantha Chinthaka, it is a mature, life-affirming love song that answers Romeo and Juliet with a quiet insistence that real love is a reason to live, not to die.