Unmadawu Premadare Lyrics by Damayanthi JayasuriyaKamal Addararachchi

A love that turned to madness
the spring of butterflies, in our youth
a blessing wished across saṃsāra (the cycle of rebirth)
it shows in these deep blue eyes

The way the waves rise and roll, like a swan
will my lips be given your soft, sweet touch?
Just as your heart came to know me,
will my heart come to know yours too?

Princess of gold from the kinnara realm,
have you come, hidden away from the depths of the sea?
In the shifting wind, like Indra’s pillar standing firm,
will I be granted the blessing to stand unshaken?

This one goes back and forth between a young man and a young woman, two people deep in a love so strong it has tipped into a kind of sweet madness. From the very first line they call it that, a love that has driven them out of their senses, and they don’t say it as a complaint. They say it like people who are happy to be lost in each other.

The song dresses that feeling in some beautiful images. They call this the spring of butterflies in their youth, and in Sinhala song spring and butterflies stand for the first bright burst of young love, the season when everything feels new and alive. Then the words reach further than a single lifetime: they speak of a blessing carried across saṃsāra, the cycle of rebirth. For a Sri Lankan listener this is the deepest thing two lovers can say to each other, that this love was wished for in past lives and is meant to follow them into the next. It is in their deep blue eyes, the kind of dark, calm eyes the poets praise.

The middle of the song is the two of them asking gentle questions, almost shy ones. He watches her move and compares it to waves rolling in and to the grace of a swan, and he wonders if he will be given the soft touch of her lips. The real ache underneath is simple and tender: you have already come to know my heart, will I get to know yours the same way? That back and forth, each one hoping the other feels it just as deeply, is the heart of the song.

At the end he reaches for the oldest images Sinhala poetry has. He calls her a golden princess from the kinnara world, the half-human, half-bird beings of myth famous for their devoted love, and asks if she rose up out of the sea like something too beautiful to be real. Then he prays that in all the shifting winds of life he can stand as steady as Indra’s pillar, the great unmoving axis of the heavens. Strip the old words away and it is the plainest wish any lover has: let me hold on, let this not be shaken. That is what the listener is left holding, two people who have lost their heads over each other and quietly hope it lasts past this life.