Youtube Mix

On our long drive to Kaziranga, D played a lot of songs, mostly Bhupen Hazarika. I probably surprised him - and myself - by remembering that one of the songs was from a movie called Chameli Memsaab. Back in the day Sunday afternoon was reserved for regional movies on Doordarshan and this was where I saw the movie. The song (O Bideshi Bandhu) was obviously earworm because I still remember it.  Here it is in not the best print around, though there is a better audio version.

Thanks to my blog (and on the topic of the blog, two longish pieces I did on 17th century Mughal fashion and Kerala), I am a minor expert on Tamil cinema of the 40s and 50s (though admittedly thanks to the excellent Blast from the Past Hindu column by Randor Guy). I quite enjoy some of the old songs that are a little freer than the latter part of the 1950s and later. Sure these early movies are a bit amateurish but somehow they are also more spontaneous and interesting. Even my aunt, an inexhaustible source of all things Tamil, hasn't been able to quench this obsession!

So apart from Sabapathy (I was surprised no one in the family had heard this, also I love AVM costumes of the 1940s), I stumbled upon Thai Ullam and En Thangai. It kind of speaks of the temporary popularity of works that I had no knowledge of a book called East Lynne, which seems a fantastic potboiler. A lot of the early movies have songs that also featured in Hindi movies - this film has Konjum Purave (Thandi Hawaein in Hindi) - I clearly remember my mother singing the Tamil version. And there is this duet, which for some reason I got hooked on. It's kind of nice to listen to not so well known voices (the 50s in fact resulted in monopolies (ugh Lata M), the 40s and early 50s have diverse voices and music).

 My knowledge of Tamil films of the time may be a bit more than required given that I know that the two people in the En Thangai video below starred in Ponmudi :-)

But let's make a complete jump to the present because I remain addicted to K-indie and 10 cm - though it is in B/W:)

Fangirling in the 30s and 40s

Rather unusually for someone my age, I had a taste for Indian music from the 1930s and 1940s.  These were the kind of songs that did not even make it to Chitrahaar/Chhaya Geet. Sometimes an old movie would screen on Doordarshan or one might hear a KL Saigal on the radio but on the whole even in the 1980s when I was young, few TV and radio stations ventured beyond the 1950s. Part of the reason for my tastes was my uncle R.  When I used to to go to my grandparents place from hostel, sometimes we would be alone and he would be playing an old song that would burn itself into my brain and I would get addicted to the singer.  He had the oddest tastes and an excellent ear for music so one could never tell what he would choose to play. This was how I was introduced to MK Thyagaraja Bhaghavthar, better known by the moniker MKT. 

Even though their tastes had moved on to the Tamil dramas on television in the 80s and 90s, my grandparents would indulge me now and then with cinema and music tales from their youth if I pestered them enough. Sometimes my grandfather would rent a MKT video for me and though these films were hackneyed I would watch them for the music.  And to listen to the spoken Tamil of the time. And much to my mother's chagrin - because she wanted me to be smart and up to date - I wanted to dress like an old time heroine - in a sari, pallu tucked in, hair in a plait - post any such viewing (I still tuck in my pallu!). Unconsciously perhaps I was deeply influenced by my grandparents because it seems strange that I wanted to be part of a time when they were young. A time they didn't feel particularly nostalgic about. Or perhaps I just had an affinity for that time.

Your average 1930s/40s hearthrob

I want to lick that postcard-Average 30s Tam girl.

My grandfather had seen and heard MKT sing. He was a goldsmith's son according to my grandfather and dazzlingly good looking. His voice of course was divine. This fact was corroborated by my grandmother who spoke pityingly and sometimes witheringly about girls who went into a swoon and daze at his very mention, who kissed the little postcards of his that they slyly bought and no doubt were writing some very erotic fan fiction in their heads and diaries. Even married women were not immune to such immature behaviour according to my grandmother - whether she liked him or not I cannot tell because she portrayed herself as above such frivolities as succumbing to masculine charms. If it was today, those girls would have set up a MKT tumblr. For while notions of masculine beauty may change, the rules of fangirling do not. 

The eyes, that smile!

In one of the movies I saw (Haridas) TR Rajakumari played an oomphy lady who took the hero for a ride before repenting and renouncing her wicked ways as was the case in movies of the time. My mother had mentioned her beauty and my grandfather had added on information about the many men left devastated by her charms, she was after all Tamil cinema's first dream girl. All of this was no hyperbole, on screen the actress was stunning.  It was an alluring beauty - she reminded me a bit of MS Subbulakshmi - but with the sex appeal amped up.  And not in the least bit in a sluttish kind of way, she just looked like a woman who a man would do anything to have.  Or for that matter the lesbian tumblrs that I see in constant meltdown over some actress of the other - if they had existed in the 30s - TRR would be their girl.  Or at the very least everyone's girl crush, she's certainly mine.

Sometimes when I would visit, my uncle would be in that jokey melancholic mood that was a trademark of his. He would then say well soon I shall be old and alone in this house with just a glass of alcohol and MKT singing.  That was not to be.  But as long as that house exists and an MKT song plays in it, he is bound to be there somewhere around, eyes closed and listening to the music,  momentarily free of the tangled thoughts of his mind while he lived. 

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My 30s/40s playlist below. MKT sang a lot of devotional songs - which I like - but I will stick (mostly)  to the more romantic ones:)

1. Manmadha Leelai with bonus Rajakumari.  Not the best dancer in comparison to some others of her time but that blown kiss (about 3.13) was quite a sensation. As it should be, coming from the Princess of everyone's dreams!

2. Vadaname Chandra Bimbamo

3. Krishna Mukunda Murare

4. Radhe unaku kovam

5. Ellam Inbame

And a bit of Saigal

1. Babul Mora

2. Do Naina Matware

3. Madhukar Shyam hamare chor

And a sample of Kanan Devi and MS songs of the time:

1. Ami Bonoful

2.Tum Bina Kal na Aave

3. Engum Nirathaiye 

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버스커 버스커 (Busker Busker)

K-pop is quite popular in Singapore. Not a fan. Or of K-indie music for that matter.

But I just can't stop listening to Busker Busker. Like anything at all from their albums. Even if it has resulted in a few Bas kar Bas kar jokes:)

Things I Like

Right now I am reading The Maias. Its a door stopper of a book and I want to bunk a day's work and curl up and devour it all in one gulp. Sadly I snatch reading time here and there to take it in. Thus far it is a classy soap that loves exclamation marks but that is just the plot, there is so much going on and Eca de Q is having so much fun and at the same time it is a sprawling, leisurely commentary on 19th century Portugal and I am entirely captivated and can't wait to finish it and restart all over again. Also I think I really really need to visit Portugal because whatever little I have seen and read (Mysteries of Lisbon, you are perfect) has been so absorbing and interesting that you have to remind yourself that these people are writing about themselves as the backwater of Europe.

I spend way too much time on tumblr, its like a rabbit hole you fall into and then you reappear and you want to write #IDK #holy fuck #excuse his beauty #obsessive replaying #cuz why not - because those are the tags you see along with other even more incoherent fangirling tags and then you realise that unlike most of tumblr which is VERY YOUNG you are on the wrong side of 40 and well perhaps a lyricist like Johnny Flynn doesn't quite deserve that and on that note here is his song, I am Light.  Only Nick Drake is rotated more often in Chez Anu. Pic Source here. And IDK is I don't know:)

And lastly, three cheers for Caravan which gets top marks not for being a great mag but for actually posting my favourite short story, Ras, in a new translation.  Even Indian cinema couldn't ruin it, not that it didn't try (to be fair it wasn't bad).

Frank Fairfield

More old-timey stuff. Not a loose modernised interpretation, but a deliberate attempt to create the sound and look of a bygone era.

Forget the music, no one can complain about a man who wears buttoned up shirts, high waisted pants and has Brylcreem in his hair.

NYT on Frank Fairfield and the Guardian on the singer

More songs here.

I Draw Slow

Can I resist a name like I Draw Slow?

Or bluegrass/Americana as interpreted by the other side of the Atlantic (and possibly the home of American folk to which it now returns filtered through the American experience)?

The answer is no.

While their take on a lady of ill-repute offering up her all for a lover is fine enough, I will go with the live recording of Swans for this post.

Old Times. New Times.

Work is very busy. Plus the little bit of time I have has been spent on late night hanging around news sites thanks to wikileaks ☺ But I don’t blog on work or politics so I will turn my thoughts briefly to music I recently blogged about. Partly because its been my background soundtrack for the past few weeks. Most of this has been a fair few rousing Decemberists songs. And can I say that if was 25 I might have entertained the thought of having a wee crush on its lead singer, Colin Meloy?!

Quite a few Decemberists songs are like old timey stuff made fresh. Like someone rummaged through old ballads, sea shanties, agricultural work songs and the like and made up whole new tales. Plus they love songs of doomed love. There is a degree of artifice and hyperliterateness about the lyrics of these songs for which I think the band has been criticised (as well as for its small degree of musical plundering) but I quite enjoy these new constructions from old materials. And Meloy's distinctive voice. Some of the songs are political but as always happens its when the personal seeps into a song that it becomes both simple and touching as in this song about the birth of his son.

Now in spite of the aforementioned potential crush, Meloy is no matinee idol. Johnny Flynn could be or well at the very least he needs to be put in a period film fast.

Flynn’s songs are also clearly influenced by British and American folk songs. His songs are also hyperliterate but unlike the Decemberists he is far more reflective and perhaps far more elegant in the construction of his verse. One of the reviews on the singer touched on his possibly being the best songwriter of his generation and this may well be true, I can't think of any other singer I have liked as much as Nick Drake. He is nowhere as well known as Mumford & Sons and Marling, perhaps his songs are not as accessible. Also they seem to be primarily poetry. And there do seem to be a few of his poems around, like this one. 

And keeping with the old timey theme, I have also been reading tweets of old sporadically and amusing myself. "Several at this place are becoming attached to the outside world by having telephones put in their houses" - indeed!

And last, it’s been ages since I bothered with the foreign Oscar winners. Too many seem intended for a bourgeois audience who can congratulate themselves on their good taste. I had Babette’s Feast somewhere in my chest of DVDs (!!) but dug it out just this Friday. Based on an Isak Dinensen story, it turned out to be both old timey and unexpectedly good. Maybe the slowness, the philosophical nature of the film was a welcome respite after a long week.

Charles & Rebecca (may) hold hands

Slow Club's wistful ode to the possibilities of an almost coupling up at different stages of life.

Some Folk for Sunday

I haven't been anywhere Portland but I hear it's the coolest city on the planet at the moment. This is all hearsay but it seems to be some kind of hipster haven full of creatives  who make music, have a DIY culture, are green and gainfully employed in selling coffee to each other. The latter bit has even reached the concentrated capitalism that is Sydney's city centre where every other greasy spoon cafe and Thai hole in the wall appears to be closing to make way for tastefully decorated places selling organic coffee and small sweets. Anyhow while drinking coffee at one such place I heard Portland band The Decemberists and they grew on me. A lot of their songs have a sort of mythical quality to them and are richly poetic, so right up my alley.  This one, We Both Go Down Together, for e.g is like an updated and quirky version of the kind of songs in which star-crossed lovers plunged to their deaths and works both ways (you may need to click watch on you tube - there are likely some embedding problems). 

As it happens, my knowledge of any kind of music, bar old Hindi songs, is rather poor. I wouldn't be able to name the Decemberists influences. I have never heard the rock, punk staples of my college life, e.g. Pink Floyd and the like. I don't know any new best-selling acts. I have rarely been to concerts. Though I do tend to be drawn towards folk influenced music and have a passing acquaintance with Dylan and Baez. It so happens that folk influenced music is having its day in the sun, albeit it is dappled sunlight and not the blazing summer sun under which Lady Gaga stands.  So I can say with some confidence that I finally have at least a nodding acquaintance with the sounds of the day. So here is another song I have been listening to, this is by Laura Marling whose age belies her gifts. This song was apparently influenced by letters sent from a wife during WWII.

Milk & Honey

Probably my favourite song of the past year and one I listen to almost every other day-as sung by the incomparable Nick Drake.

And - ah, the pleasures of youtube! Here's the Jackson C. Frank original.

Nina Kinert

Nina Kinert is Swedish, a singer and I am kind of enjoying her opaque lyrical stylings on motorcars, bumblebees, dandelions and chocolates (inexplicably Wiki tells me it was used to spruik Saab).

A particular, sweet ache

I think I would like to visit Portugal.

Though much nearer home, fado (kind of Portuguese blues) is sung in Goa too.

Mesk Elil

From French-Algerian songstress Souad Massi's album of the same name. Mesk Elil is arabic for honeysuckle.

Mandarin Bluegrass

Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet marry Mandarin lyrics with Appalachian sound in this video:



Lovely.

Her Morning Elegance

Oren Lavie's stop motion video:

On Beauty - I

I love MS's old Tamil songs. And the serene and pure beauty of her face as she aged.

Measure for Measure

NYT's Measure for Measure has come to a halt. Kind of sad since it introduced me to Andrew Bird and Jeffrey Lewis (also his illustrations).

Which in turn led me to Lewis' very cute Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex song. And Bird & Loizeau's duet London Town. And then on to Loizeau's L'autre Beau Du Monde.

Spare-Ohs

Right now I am liking Andrew Bird, here is the man in Montmarte.