Songs on themes

An aviary of Songs

Bird-watch in the Songs of Yore

Wishing Happy New Year to all the readers with guest article by Shalan Lal

(Once upon a time there were birds around us and they were a part of our lives, songs, mtyths and legends. When the crow cawed we knew it was advance intimation of a guest coming; when the koel cooed in the monsoon rains it pierced the heart of the lonely lady pining for her lover who was away; when the papiha sang far away the lovers knew the night was only half left; when Shakaracharya heard a parrot uttering deeply metaphysical aphorisms like स्वतः प्रमाणं परतः प्रमाणम्‌ he knew he had reached the house of Pandit Mandan Mishra; and when Valmiki heard the heart-rending cry of a crane whose partner was killed by a hunter’s arrow during mating, from his grief-stricken heart came out the first verse of the mankind that made him the आदि कवि.

If you think about it, the once familiar birds are becoming rarer. Songs of Yore heralds the New Year remembering these birds with this guest article by Shalan Lal. Shalan has discovered SoY late, but has since become its avid follower. Besides the very learned comments she posts on the blog, she often sends me long comments as she catches up with the old posts when she feels these may appear outdated on the blog. Our interaction has led to several interesting ideas that can develop into articles. While we were discussing some other topics, I was pleasantly surprised to get this beautifully written piece in mail.

Shalan is based in London where she works with women’s issues. She is widely travelled, she has had academic association with the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and some other universities. Her interests range from politics to literature to religion. This article bears out her wide-ranging inetersts and international outlook.

Thank you Shalan for this article and welcome to SoY as a guest author. – AK)

BirdThis is a bird’s eye view of the Songs of Yore over the Hindi films. In the English culture often the word Bird was used for a young girl by the male youths in the sixties and seventies. I was young then. There were other words for the young girls used in those days as well for example “a doll”, a babe and the vulgar term “a crumpet” as well. There could be more.

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Multiple Versions Songs (23): A Male / Female solo / duet or a Chorus – More than two versions of a song

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav

(Ashokji is coming to the end of his current enquiry into the songs that have a specific type of multiple version songs.  He has covered songs that have a male solo and a duet or chorus in two parts – MVS (20) and MVS (21), and the ones having a female solo and such versions in MVS (22).  Here he is presenting songs that have at least three versions.  As the SoY regulars are aware, the Mega Series on Multiple Version Songs, has gone into many dimensions, including  songs that have versions across different languages.  You can be sure that with his indefatigable spirit and great capacity to look for details, ably supported by the knowledgeable readers, Ashokji would find many more variations in this umbrella category of songs. You can review the entire series here. – AK)

Multiple version songsThe journey to Male Solo and a Duet Or a Female Solo and a Duet or Chorus has one more fascinating side – the songs that have three versions.

The illustrations that I have been able to collect show that such a route has been used to vividly depict different moods or situations where the same song (or at least mukhda) serves to provide the common linkage.

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Multiple Versions Songs (22): Female Solo and A Duet or A Chorus

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav

(Ashokji has been currently exploring a specific type of multiple version songs that have a solo and a duet or chorus versions.  In his last two articles, Multiple Version Songs (20) and (21), he explored those songs that have a male solo and its duet/chorus versions.  He continues the enquiry for female solos that have such versions.  As the readers are aware, Ashokji has laid the foundation of the Mega Series on Multiple Version Songs, which has seen contributions from some other guest writers as well. I thank him for his unflagging interest in going to the depths of the subject. – AK)

Multiple version songsWe are onto the multiple versions of a solo song which has a pairing duet or a chorus. In the first sub-variation of this theme, we had a male solo and its duet or chorus version. Presently, we will take up multiple version songs where one song is a solo by a female playback singer and the other version is either a duet or a chorus.

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Multiple Versions Songs (21): Male solo and Duet or Chorus (Part II)

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav

(Ashokji has been recently exploring songs that have a solo version and a duet or chorus version.  In this series within the Mega series on Multiple Version Songs, he wrote on January 20, 2015 on songs that have a male solo and a duet or chorus version.  This guest article is a sequel to that post, arising out of the comments and responses of the readers to his last article. Ashokji’s perseverance in exploring a subject to the minutest detail is quite impressive. – AK)

Multiple version songs‘Multiple Versions Songs (20): Male Solo and Duet or Chorus’ received an overwhelming feedback from the very learned, active and passionate SoY fraternity. That makes a writer like me overwhelmed by a sense of great joy and deep gratitude. The feedback has thrown up quite a few more songs for this particular variation of A Male Solo and its Duet or Chorus Version as well as for other variations. So, it is matter of a great pleasure to do this sequel to the ‘Multiple Versions Songs (20): Male Solo and Duet or Chorus’.

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Songs of Holi

Wishing Happy Holi to all

HoliThis is the fifth year of Songs of Yore, and I have not yet done a post on Holi songs. Every time Holi came, I thought everyone would be doing a list of Holi songs, and my doing one would be trivial, and may contain overlapping songs. Along the way, I strayed into writing ‘serious’ articles on Holi, culminating in a review of ‘Sangam’ last year.

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Multiple Versions Songs (20): Male Solo and Duet or Chorus

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav

(Ashokji is the originator of the mega series ‘Multiple Version Songs’, when he expanded the straight ‘Twin’ (male solo and its twin female solo) songs to other varieties of multiple versions. This caught on and, with the help of other guest contributors, expanded into similar version songs in Hindi and other languages, covering all the South Indian languages and Marathi and Bengali. You can view the entire series here. Now the Master resumes the series with a set of articles exploring a variety of multiple versions not covered so far. – AK)

[Songs of Yore is now on Facebook]

Multiple version songsWe have travelled a long distance in our tour of multiple versions of Hindi films songs across several other Indian languages and moods. We revert back to some hard core listing of the songs in this series. We now take a look at one more variant of multiple versions of a song – one version of the song is either a male or a female solo or a duet and the other version is either a duet or a chorus.

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Aao bachcho tumhein dikhayen jhanki….ki

Independence Day greetings to India and Pakistan

Jagriti-BedariFill in the blank in ‘Aao bachcho tumhein dikhayen jhanki…ki’. We all know the answer – ‘Hindustan’. If you think of it, ‘Pakistan’ also fits in perfectly. It is quite befitting that this is so, because no two countries have such shared history, shared culture, language, musical tradition, dress and appearance. India and Pakistan both got independence on the same day (August 15/14) from the British rule by the same Act of British Parliament, ‘India Independence Act 1947’. This was more like a surgeon separating two children at birth, with the ‘surgeon’ Radcliffe cutting the land into two by drawing his scalpel on the map, creating two nation-states.

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Multiple Version Songs (18): Hindi-Telugu exchange

Guest article by Arunkumar Deshmukh

(The Living Encyclopaedia, Arunji, needs no introduction to the readers of SoY or other music related blogs.  His first guest article in the series on Multiple Version Songs was on Hindi-Marathi, naturally.  When I was struggling to look for someone to write on Hindi-Kannada, Arunji surprised me by doing the favour.  Telugu is one of the many languages he is proficient in.  So it was only a matter of time that he would write on it. With this, all the four South Indian languages are covered – Venkataramanji and Anuradha Warrier having already done guest articles on Tamil and Malayalam respectively.   The series conceptualised by Mr Ashok M Vaishnav has grown way beyond what he may have thought initially.  Arunji is known for the depth of his research and capacity for great detail. I thank him, as also Priya Laxmiji, Ambrish Sundaramji and Sudhirji, who have helped him in his endeavour.  – AK)

Bhakta Prahlad 1931I had the advantage of being born in a multi-language state like Hyderabad. It was a composite state of 8 Telugu speaking districts (which have now become Telangana state), 5 districts of Marathi speakers and 3 districts of Kannadigas. Hyderabad being the Capital city, people from all sectors had settled here. I had many Telugu and Kannada friends. I picked up these two languages easily as a child. Urdu was the medium of instruction till the 5th standard and Marathi was my mother tongue, while Hindi was the language of communication. No wonder I became a multi-language person, with English (and now Gujarati) to boot!

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Multiple Versions Songs (17): Haunting Melodies in Different Moods And Settings

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav

(As the SoY regulars are aware, the series on  Multiple Version Songs has grown in dimension well beyond what was originally envisaged by Ashokji, about a year and half back.   Fortunately, SoY family has some tremendously talented and knowledgeable people, and they chipped in with guest articles, on my request, to cover various aspects of this theme. 

Following close on the heels of the last post on Rabindrasangeet-Pankaj Mullick, written by Venkaramanji, which was 16th in the series on the Multiple Version Songs, this post on Haunting Melodies in Spooky Films  just shows the enormous range of MVS.  The haunting melodies are meant to be repeated a number of times in the movie to create an effect of suspense, mystery, fear and eeriness.  It takes an analytical mind with sharp observation, like Ashokji’s, to decipher the varied moods and settings of the different versions of  such songs.  I am happy to present this article by him which widens the exploration of MVS. – AK)

Haunting MelodiesThe journey exploring a definite genre of Hindi film songs – Multiple Versions of A Song – has had several streams till now.

‘Haunting Melodies’ is a genre in itself in the film songs. These types of songs are normally the cornerstone of a thriller or a suspense drama. Typically, the song either precedes ‘that’ event in the narrative which builds the suspense or helps build aura of suspense around a character or a set of events in the film. In that sense, quite a few of the haunting melodies simply repeat in relation to the flow of the story. But there are quite a few which have major, or sometimes subtle, variations in lyrics, rhythm or orchestration – to amplify the differing events / situations in the film narrative.

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Multiple Version Songs (16): Rabindra Sangeet and Pankaj Mullick

Hridaya Pankaje Rabi Viraje

A tribute to Gurudev Rabindranath Thakur (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) and Pankaj Mullick (10 May 1905 – 19 February 1978) by guest author N Venkataraman

(The appeal of Rabindranath Thakur’s poetry and songs of love, nature and worship transcends the boundaries of language and culture. Pankaj Mullick, one of the titans of music and films, has a historical place in bringing Rabindra Sangeet mass popularity through his singing, and using it in films for the first time. I was looking for a knowledgeable Bengali to write on Rabindra Sangeet-Pankaj Mullick-films songs, as a part of the series on Multiple Version Songs. SoY readers are familiar with Venkataramanji’s breadth and depth of knowledge, and he is as pucca a Bengali as anyone could be. I am grateful that he accepted my request to write this double tribute to the two great souls of India on the occasion of Gurudev’s 153rd and Pankaj Mullick’s 109th birth anniversaries. – AK)

Rabindrnath Tagore-Pankaj MullickSometime during May last year, AKji had wished to bring out two articles, under the Multiple-Version-Songs series. The first one, on ‘SD Burman’s Bengali songs and their Hindi versions’, was done by AKji in October 2013. The post on ‘Rabindra Sangeet tunes used in Hindi films’ was generously offered to me, but with a rider – I must accommodate a tribute to Pankaj Mullick, whose birthday follows a couple of days after Gurudev’s. The topic, Rabindra Sangeet tunes used in Hindi films, has been covered earlier on some other sites, and I believe most of our knowledgeable readers and our Bengali friends must be aware of these songs and related facts. But that did not prove to be a deterrent. On the contrary, it gave me an opportunity to explore uncharted areas and approach the subject a bit differently. The experience was not futile. Although I could use only a fraction of my acquisition in this post, it helped me to enhance my knowledge and listen to many wonderful songs.

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