Dear Dasun, Your write up is truly impressive. The depth of details you have gone into analyzing the lyrics and composition is amazing. In spite of Tamil being a foreign language, the immense interest you took to get the translation and perform a thorough analysis of the lyrics to closely relate to the nuances of the composition, greatly and distintly identifies your flair for Music.
I am happy to be part of this forum, where I could learn lots of new things and see wonderful minds together, openly sharing their thoughts on the magical creation of the maestro! Keep it up man, way to go... Best wishes Ganesh --- In [email protected], Dasun Abeysekera <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > As promised, here's the write-up on Uyirum Neeye. > > I just wanted to share this awesome experience about one of my all- time favorite songs. Some of you may have already felt this sense of jubilation, but I wanted to share my process of discovering the magnificence of this divinely inspired song. > > Rano, once in this forum, mentioned the beauty of the song Azhagu Nilave from Pavithra (1994). In the process of going through Pavithra's songs on the iTunes Music Store to find Azhagu Nilave, I found Uyirum Neeye as well, in my opinion, easily the best song of the album; and I came to that conclusion with no knowledge of what the lyrics meant. It was a purely gut response to the scintillating music and Unnikrishnan's enviable voice. Unnikrishnan apparently won the 1995 National Award for Best Male Playback singer for his rendition of this song along with another incredible song - 'Ennavale' from Shankar's Kaadhalan; and Ennavale was his first film song? Unbelievable! Divine interventions aside, the music spoke of something special that I was so determined to discover, for I knew well by then, that there is something deeper than the notes and Raagas which ARR tries to convey through his music; and if the intuitive discovery of that, as is well known, takes time, the intellectual discovery, for the crazy Rahmaniac who yearns to dive the depths of his imagination, takes even longer! I must have posted a couple of requests on this forum begging for a translation of the song, but did not get one for a while. > > Then on 6/3/06, one of our members here posted the translation. I usually write down the date and source when I make a copy of anything, but unfortunately, in this instance, I forgot to write down the name of the member who posted it; so my apologies for not crediting the source. Please do let me know your name if you see this message. > > After I read the lyrics, my wonderment of this song reached new heights. It is a given that the poetry by Vairamuthu is in a class of it's own. Wikipedia states Pavithra and Karuthamma (both with ARR's music) fetched him the National Award for Best Lyrics in 95 as well (I don't care much for Filmfare Awards, but a National Award carries merit!). What the lyrics expressed was obvious. It was a grand tribute to a mother; but, the music was not the usual music you hear in a typical son-to-mother song. So, I listened carefully to what the music was trying to say for the longest time. Usually, most music directors will get the inspiration for the song from the first verse (mukhda); so I focused on the mukhda and how ARR might have thought about capturing this in the music. > > Uyirum neeye, udalum neeye, uravum neeye...thaaye (II) > Thun udalil sumandhu, uyirai pagirndhu, uruvam tharuvaai neeye (II) > Un kaNNil vazhiyum oru thuLi podhum, Kadalum urugum thaaye (II) > Un kaaladi mattum tharuvai thaaye, Sorgam enbadhum poyye > > * source = http://www.geocities.com/promiserani/tamil/t1036.html > > My life, My body, My binding...my Mother (II) > Bearing me in your self, bestowing your life to me, and embodying me (II) > A single tear drop from your eyes and oceans drown (II) > Gift me your feet and the heavens seem a lie. > > * source = member of this group > > First I thought the guitar introduction was inspired by the phrase, 'a single tear drop from your eyes,' as the first two notes of the bended B and the F# feels like a drop of tear as it escapes the corner of a mother's eye and lands to drown an ocean; and that phrase does bring out a beautiful change in line 3 of the mukhda as well. I wish I can give you a musical analysis of this, but my knowledge of Raagas is almost non-existent. I know the song is based on Raag Kamas. If someone can provide that, it will be awesome and I would be very grateful! I'm trying to analyze the music with my knowledge of western music, which might not be the best way to approach the musical analysis, but it will be interesting to see the results. I'll share it when I have it ready. > > I kept thinking about the teardrop inspiration, but the flamenco- influenced, but Carnatic-flavored guitar solos interspersed with the Saraswathi Veena were too mesmerizing to be inspired by only a teardrop. I have not yet seen the movie - Pavithra, so I don't know how this song had been picturised. Sometimes the picturization can offer hints about how the music was inspired. So, I stuck with the lyrics and moved on to the second verse (anthra). > > PeNNai padaithaan, maNNai padaitthaan > Katrum, mazhaiyum, oliyum padaitthaan (II) > Boomikku adhanaal nimmadhi illai (II) > Sami thavitthan... > Sami thavitthan thaayai padaitthan > > He created the skies, He created the sands, > The winds, the rains, the light, He created, > Yet, peace reigns not on Earth, > He struggled in anguish... > He struggled in anguish and created Mother > > This anthra is as powerful lyrically as the mukhda with a magic touch added with the pause and the single F# on guitar playing following 'Saami thavitthan' to portray God, the Master Perfectionist, in anguish sensing that something was missing in his creation...and then creating mother, the source of creation itself! If the teardrop served as the catalyst within the mukhda for the music, the Creation of Mother was the catalyst within the anthra. > > Then one morning, I realized that it is Creation that ARR is trying to capture in the background, possibly from the bended first note itself! If you close your eyes and try to imagine God's hand painting earth on His canvas, that is what the musical depiction appears to me now! This might have been also inspired by the 16th century Renaissance painter/sculptor Michaelangelo Buonarrotti's masterpiece - The Creation of Adam - which is painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, Italy. > > The bended B that starts the song now feels like God giving a moment of thought before he starts creating the earth, slowly laying down its framework. And then while He is in the process of creating, a son pays a tribute to his mother. The second interlude on Guitar and Veena suggests that God is now heavily involved with the process of creation, with the rapid Guitar lines depicting His incredibly fast hands moving across the framework to paint various things of magnificent colors. And then the Veena backed by the Thavil strikes five mighty brush strokes anticipating the anthra's first two lines... creation of the skies, sands, wind, rain, and then light! > > Incredible imagination on Vairamuthu's part; and just what he needed to give ARR to come up with unbelievable music. Talk about integrity in music and lyrics!!! What magnificent creativity! Michaelangelo, what say you? > > _________________________________________________________________ > Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. > http://www.windowslive.com/share.html? ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 >
