How to whittle down an oceanic oeuvre? Here’s how I did it.
But there are so many films with such songs. So in this piece, I wanted to talk about some of these lesser-heard songs. The reason these songs/compositions spring instantly to mind is because they are so legendary, so defining, so popular – and yet, they “restrict” the perception of an artist (or a band), when the work contains so much more than just these Greatest Hits. It’s fantastic music, of course – but it felt a little like remembering Beethoven only through the ‘ Fifth Symphony‘ or The Police only through ‘ Every Breath You Take‘. He’s an entire generation removed from me, and when I asked him to talk about Ilaiyaraaja’s music, he picked ‘ Kanne Kalaimaane‘ and ‘ Thenpaandi Cheemayile‘. Given that an orchestra from Hungary will be playing, should I make a list of my favourite non-vocal parts (i.e., the preludes and interludes) from his songs? Should I make it even more personal, recalling how I used to record his songs on cassettes in five-year groups (because the ‘76-‘81 songs sound different from the ‘81-‘86 songs, and so on)? I thought about listing some of the popular songs that don’t work for me (like ‘Vandhaal Vandhaal Rajakumari’) and yet I admire at various levels, but that was negative-sounding and hardly celebratory.Īnd then, the recent Sid Sriram interview gave me the idea. I wanted to write something to commemorate the Ilayaraja 75 concert, but I kept getting stuck.
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