Saturday, February 21, 2009

Break on through to the other side!


Music - What does it mean to you?

To me music means everything, I embrace music in whatever form it is, be it Acid rock, heavy metal or hindustani. Basically I dont care about the genre of the music. If a song can put you into a state of trans - why care about genre.

I started tripping on english music 2 years back - I was influenced by few of my friends from the previous company and later i got sucked into it. By English music I mean the legendary bands like - The DOORS, Led Zep, The Kinks, Grateful Dead etc.

Listening to the the LedZep's stairway to heaven and no quarters have made me have mood swings - whenever I'm low on morale I play these tracks and i get back to my full vigour. No day passes without listening to Kinks - "You really got me going" - The voice of Dave Davis puts me into a world of "no- worries". Any music lover would love that song - its just a 2.11 minute piece but delivers an ever lasting impact on what music was during the sixties.

If ever God grants me a wish - I would ask me to put me back into 60's where i could grow up listening to these great bands.

And if given a second wish I would want to meet Jim Morrison - the god of music. His song "Light My Fire" made every person in farthest part of planet run crazy. His voice was magical and the songs he has given to the world during his short stay in the earth (he died at 27 - yes same like Jimi Hendrix; Great people die young!) is still raved about. I love this guy just for his attitude. You guys must have heard of this phrase : " Dont live in this world like you rule it; Live it like you dont give a damn whoever rules it". He was a epitome for this phrase.




Let me quote an episode which reiterates this. The Doors was given a chance to perform in the Ed Sullivan's LIVE show - then considered the Mecca for the rock bands. They had to perform their No.1 single - "light my fire". The production manager of the show made one small request to the band and asked them to change one world in their first stanza of the song which goes like this :

"You know that it would be untrue,
You know that I would be a liar,
If I was to say to you
Girl, we couldn't get much higher"

The production manager wanted the last word changed from "higher" to "nicer" as it was provocative and vulgar those days. After some confrontation - the band agreed.

When the show was aired LIVE - Jim continued with the original script and stuck to "higher" as he didnt want to change the song for anyone.After the song was over the band was thrown out of the studio and the remaining contract to perform for 4 more shows were terminated. Ray - the key board and pianist of the band, came to Jim and asked him " Jim, Do you realize that we will not be allowed perform the greatest music show on earth "the Ed Sullivan's show" ?

Bang came the reply " Ray, we just peformed on the Ed Sullivan's show". This shows the attitude which he owns and flaunts.

Apart from the english music scene I also love our Tamil music.My all time favorite is Munbe Vaa.and I love hindi music too! The latest peppy numbers by A.R.Rehman Masakali and Dilli-6 has made me go crazy.
If english music and filmy music makes my head turn, Carnatic music is not far away.
we have been blessed to listen to the likes of Smt. MS Subhulakshmi, Shri. Maharajapuram Santhanam, Shri. Madurai Mani Iyer and other great souls.
"Kurai ondrum illai" rendered by MS soothes every nerve in the body and "Bhaja Govindam" sets in you a sense of self realisation.
Okay let me take a break now. I dont want to bore you guys anymore.

1 comment:

Ramakrishnan Thiagarajan said...
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