IR Compositions: Lyrics and Situation

Musing more on this 'lyric' aspect, I think the degeneration started much before him, when vAli started off in a big way with his "eulogising" MGR (and KaNNadAsan's prolificity took a beating due to his personality clashes / politics and various other factors by the 70's). The more heard movie songs of 70's had no appreciable lyrics or music but political agenda on horn speakers, IMO. Forcing mEttukkudi's to go to lyrics they could not understand / appreciate much (indhi / abba-boneyM).

That way, it won't be wrong to say that IR kind of brought back attention to Thamizh lyrics once again to TN people :-) Except that save a brief association with VM, he possibly couldn't get opportunities to work with extraordinary poets.

a_e,

I would agree with you reg lyrics vis-a-vis society in general. When Vairamuthu was once asked why he did not write philosophical lyrics like Kannadasan did, he ended up asking which hero can carry those sort of lyrics that Sivaji did earlier.

Sureshs65,

That's exactly the point. Many who complain about the lyrical quality of IR songs turn a blind eye to 'veththalayappOttENdee's, 'mukkAbulA's and 'hai rabbA's - selectively quoting a rare 'Ambal-mouvval' & 'vaseegara un nenjinikka' kind to project how MSV kept it high - IR dropped it dead - but ARR / next gen revived it etc.

The fact is most current songs -where IR is no practical factor - have abysmal poetic quality - littered with thanglish and other unintelligible words; one has to dig deep to find gems, if any!

Rajasaranam,
Pichai Paathiram - You got me on this one :notworthy:

பாறையில பூ முளைச்சி பார்த்தவக யாரு!
அன்பு கொண்ட நெஞ்சத்துக்கு ஆயுசு நூறு!

- கொடியிலே மல்லிகப் பூ..

நானும் சேர்ந்து போகவும் சிறகு இல்லையே
உறவும் இல்லையே..
..
அறியாத ஆடு.. வழி மாறியதோ
..
தங்கப்பூவே சந்திப்போமா..
சந்தித்தாலும் சிந்திப்போமா!
..
தரைக்கு வந்த பிறகு
தவிக்கும் இந்த சருகு

-- போகுதே போகுதே

கடலோர கவிதைகள் படத்தை கலைப்படம் என்றும் சொல்லமுடியாது. முழுக்க முழுக்க வியாபார நோக்கில் எடுக்கப்பட்ட படமென்றும் தள்ள முடியாது.

வைரமுத்துவின் வைர வரிகள் ராஜாவின் இசையை கோபுரத்தில் வைத்து அழகு படுத்துகிறது.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by app_engine

Sureshs65,

That's exactly the point. Many who complain about the lyrical quality of IR songs turn a blind eye to 'veththalayappOttENdee's, 'mukkAbulA's and 'hai rabbA's - selectively quoting a rare 'Ambal-mouvval' & 'vaseegara un nenjinikka' kind to project how MSV kept it high - IR dropped it dead - but ARR / next gen revived it etc.

The fact is most current songs -where IR is no practical factor - have abysmal poetic quality - littered with thanglish and other unintelligible words; one has to dig deep to find gems, if any!

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app_engine,

I very much agree that the poor lyrical quality is a case with all MD's, I didn't mean that only IR's songs were the sufferers. That is why, I supposed that it could be due to "mettukku paatu" constraint (purely a speculation) but more blatantly due to the commercial pressure, volume of music output from our industry (I wonder how yesteryears TFI compares with current one in terms of volume of output) and due to lack of variety in situations. Oru thalaivanum thalaiviyum kadhalikradhukku evlo thaan'ya pudhusa paatu ezhudha mudiyum! The "Muqqala"s and "Hai rabba"s you mentioned very much suffer from the same problems as the IR songs we are discussing here.

Since we are discussing lyrics and also about transposing tunes, I can think of two songs which morphed from being a minor song to a major hit due to lyrics. These are two Hindi tunes which were transposed to Tamil by the music director 'Veda'. (Everyone has pointed out that with a small adjustement, Veda can be transposed to Deva :) One song in Hindi was 'sau bAr janam lengE'. Music by Usha Khanna. This was transposed to Tamil as 'Orayiram pArvayilE'. The lyrics in Hindi were very standard ones and the song a minor hit but the lyrics of Kannadasan made this a very well liked song in Tamil. Another such song, which was again transposed from Hindi by Veda was 'tumE pyar karte hain karte rahenge'. I think the music was by Shankar Jaikishan. This was remade in Tamil as 'nAn malarOdu taniyAga yEn ingu nindrEn'. Kannadasan's lyrics for this song are a joy to listen again and again. He wonderfully tells a story of petty jealousy between the lovers. Both these songs are still quite well known in Tamil Nadu and I hold that their popularity here has more to do with the lyrics of Kannadasan more than the tune itself.

While a good discussion on lyrics is on, I will get back to the intent of the thread :)

Yesterday I was watching the 'Ananda rAgam' song from 'Panner Pushpangal'. You can clearly see that everything in the song done by Raja is for the situation and yet it sounds so wonderful to someone who has no inkling of the situation. Starting for the initial violins till the very end, every piece of music is designed to merge with the happenings on screen. The second interlude especially evokes the movement of the train and when finally the kids enter the train, the bass guitar and the drumming simulate the train movement, though hearing it outside of the film's context, you still enjoy the bass and the drumming. Excellent song.

We were discussing about how 'poonkAtru' from Mundram Pirai was replaced by 'Yeh Zindagi' in Hindi and whether it had to do with the complexity of the tune. There is one more instance wherein a complex tune was replaced by a more free flowing one. The complex tune was from the movie, 'Rudra Veena'. The song 'taraLirAdA tanE vasantham'. You can watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyzmcWWPlVc This was replaced in 'Unnal Mudiyum Thambi' by a more free flowing 'nanjai unDu punjai unDu'. Maybe Balachander thought the Telugu tune was a bit more classical than required? (The situation is about Chiranjeevi / Kamal singing a 'janaranjakam' song based on a classical raga.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sureshs65

We were discussing about how 'poonkAtru' from Mundram Pirai was replaced by 'Yeh Zindagi' in Hindi and whether it had to do with the complexity of the tune. There is one more instance wherein a complex tune was replaced by a more free flowing one. The complex tune was from the movie, 'Rudra Veena'. The song 'taraLirAdA tanE vasantham'. You can watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyzmcWWPlVc This was replaced in 'Unnal Mudiyum Thambi' by a more free flowing 'nanjai unDu punjai unDu'. Maybe Balachander thought the Telugu tune was a bit more classical than required? (The situation is about Chiranjeevi / Kamal singing a 'janaranjakam' song based on a classical raga.)

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I think the key word here is customization rather than de-complexification. Even raNdi raNdi got replaced by enna samayalO, which was more than a tune change; it was a complete situation change for the song. The character of the lower-caste self-made lawyer with his very telugu quirks, and a keen sense of music, couldnt be translated I suppose. Hence, comic relief shifts to Manorama, ThaariNi and Kozhundhanar Kamal and so does the song. In general, UMT seems to be an uninspired effort from KB and Kamal both. KB not capturing the believability of Rudra Veena and Kamal seemingly not very bought-in to the movie. Raja, however, delivered big-time in both versions.