#49 உறவெனும் புதிய வானில், பறந்ததே இதய மோகம்
(நெஞ்சத்தைக் கிள்ளாதே, 1980 , ஜானகியுடன்)
Sophisticated!
That's my one word description of this song and none can come anywhere close, never, IMO! ('poongARRu puthithAnadhu' / 'en iniya pon nilAvE' are distant second)...Sounds modern ever, with no indulgence in English or technical terms or anything that's "supposed to sound cool" but the song sounds hip even today!
Right from the prelude, one can sense that Raja was on a different trip in this song (actually the whole album). Perhaps pre-determined by the combo (IR-Mahendran-Pratap-Ashok Kumar) that they're going to have the music unlike anything heard before. The guitar (bass / lead), synth, flute, strings - every one of them was possibly pre-planned to be stylish (well, it seemed like that to me). I wish Madhavan heard this 1980 number before making a comment on the 1991 'rAkkammA kaiyaththattu' as 'something not expected from IR' :-(
IIRC, the team planned everything about this movie in a classy manner (the artwork of posters, pictures on them, movie title, songs - everything looked sophi). I watched the movie only recently on web -it had its flaws but definitely enjoyable and way ahead of its times. Well, the good thing was it becoming a big hit both commercially and among critics, something only the likes of Mahendran can do!
Though 'paruvamE' had more air time, uRavenum was my personal #1. It had everything that I wanted - a modern sounding Raja, sweet melody, excellent singing by SJ & SPB, decent lines with absolutely nothing to irritate! This is one youtube that one can happily search for and there won't be any disappointment! While my +1 classmates had funny comments about the heroine when it arrived, they loved the movie & songs so much!
(Ofcourse, one should look at Suhasini as "some new girl doing her first movie", i.e. without prejudice and not the artist who played many annoying feminist roles with KB & others later in her career or the too-talkative TV artist or MR's wife who gives controversial interviews to media every now and then or the niece of a great actor having far less talent or the one who had a share in Chiru's massacres of many IR-TeFM-songs or the infamous dialog writer of rAvaNan.
At least look at her as a DHIRF or the pAdaRiyEn / nAnoru sindhu girl :wink: )
First TF for Mohan also (who did 'kOkilA' in Kannada with Kamal/Balu Mahendra earlier) and Raja definitely gave him a rousing welcome with two superb duets. Ashok Kumar, IIRC, won NA for his pleasant camera work. Suhasini started her film career as assistant to Ashok Kumar (after film institute study of cinematography I think).
At that point of time, a great team - everyone thinking modern / sophi - working with IR! Per my theory ("oft-repeated-in-the-hub" by me), whenever Pratap Pothen and IR were together in a movie, the guitar work was endearing and so Pratap could've exerted some positive peer pressure on IR. Whether true or not, we are the greatest beneficieries of this one fantastic team of NK!