Kuiama

Probably the best ELO lyrics in all their oeuvre…

A very sad and long song, yet one of their best, featured on their second album https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_2 :  dig the great violin solo by Wilf Gibson

“This one, without doubt, is the favourite of all the band. It’s a sad story about a war orphan with a soldier explaining to her all about the war — and that it was he that killed her parents. The most sensitive thing we do.” – Bev Bevan, 1973 Birmingham Post & Mail article entitled: Chart Boost Coming For Brum And E.L.O.

My My Kuiama, she came in the morning
she smiled but the tears on her little face
showed the pain that had been in that far off place
so sad, treated so bad

My My Kuiama, don’t break your heart tryin
to say how your ma and your pa passed away
and they left you to wander the ruin and decay
real mean, that bullet machine

See here Kuiama, now ten thousand miles
is a long long way and you’re here today
and you won’t go back so you might say
hello, how do you do

Kuia stop your cryin, there’s no bombs a’fallin
no horsemen in the night a’ridin through your dreams and tearing at your life
baby goodnight

No more silver rain will hit your ground
and no more guns will sound
and no more life be drowned
No more trenches where the soldiers lie
and no more people die
beneath that big black sky

Wake up Kuiama, I got somethin to tell you
it’s just that I mean, well that is to say,
that I’m trying to explain but I’ll start again,
for you, I must be true.

Kuia in this country, they got rules with no reason
they teach you to kill and they send you away
with your gun in your hand, you pick up your pay
so cool, that no mercy tool

Kuia please believe me? I just couldn’t help myself.
I wanted to run but they gave me a gun
and they told me the duty I owed to my Fatherland.
I made my stand.

Kuia I just shot them, I just blew their heads open,
and I heard them scream in their agony
Kuiama she waits there for me
True blue, you saw it through.