KATHAKALI BOY
Words and music by Sarah McQuaid & Zoë Pollock
Recorded on Mama: Crow Coyote Buffalo (2009)
Claimed by your calling before you were conceived
Already dancing before you learned to speak
Now you are teaching and I am at your feet
My heart is yearning and you are all I see
Oh Kathakali boy in the coloured lights
Oh Kathakali boy in the coloured lights
The rhythm of the drumming, the flickering of the lamp
All night ’til morning you worship with your dance
The beauty of a woman, the body of a man
Five hundred meanings in the movement of a hand
Oh Kathakali boy in the coloured lights
Oh Kathakali boy in the coloured lights
Green for the hero and yellow for his wife
Black for the hunter with eyes of red and white
An entertainer for princes and for gods
To be their pleasure, your reason and your cause
I am no better, the freedom I have sought
Confines me tighter than any prison lock
Oh Kathakali boy in the coloured lights
Oh Kathakali boy in the coloured lights
