The film song as a tone poem

When AR Rahman’s soundtrack for Atrangi Re was released, the song that instantly wormed its way into my ears was Tumhe mohabbat hai. It wasn’t just the music or the longing in Arijit Singh’s expression. It was also Irshad Kamil’s word-weaving. The entire song has two “themes”. The first is the overarching theme: Dhanush’s sadness/heartache. The second is the sub-theme, if you will: each line is an imagined (by Dhanush) ode to that sadness/heartache. In other words, if the overarching theme is content, the sub-theme is form.

The man who gazes at your eyes The man whose lips shiver on yours The man who speaks your language The man who loosens your hair at night

And on and on it goes, until — at the end — we realise that Dhanush wants to know who this man is, because it’s certainly not him. (The form changes at the end, changing from poetry to prose.) Longtime readers know about my obsession with “form”, always the first criterion for evaluating a work of art. The same song’s “content” could have been expressed with the lyrics of, say, Tu pyar hai kisi aur ka, tujhe chahta koi aur hai (Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahain). But that is a more generic sub-theme/form. That song simply says: “I am sad.” This one says: “I am sad, and I am hurting myself by imagining all these things this man is doing to you, the things that I want to do to you, and I want to know who that man is you prefer over me.”

The tone poem is a piece of Western classical music that expresses an “idea” in a movement, like Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. That is done entirely through music, of course (because we are not talking about opera, which has words, too). The film songs that hit my sweet spot are these “tone poems”, which carry one idea throughout. The idea for this post came about after listening to a beautiful Shreya Ghosal number from Gangubai Kathiawadi: Jab saiyan. (The unexpected melody lines and the strong raag phrases suggest a love child of Madan Mohan and MSV.) AM Turaz writes of a woman/sex worker’s love. So the overarching theme/content is: I love this man. The sub-theme/form gives us a sense of how this man she loves brightens up her life in these dingy surroundings.

The first stanza uses the word chand/moon (one of Bhansali’s favourite metaphoric terms, along with “guroor”, which also appears in this song. When my beloved turned up in the evening, my name became even more beautiful, as beautiful as the moon. Every burning insult hurled upon me ceased to matter. In fact, I celebrated them. I danced with them, wearing them proudly on my head, when my beloved turned up in the evening. The second stanza takes a turn to describe her life, her very busy life — and then, the third stanza returns to what this man makes her feel, after leading that very busy life. His love burns so brightly that dispels all the “darkness”, where I don’t even have the time to see my face.

I had posted a newly discovered (for me) and utterly astounding MSV-Kannadasan song a while ago, from the film Gnana Oli. The overarching theme/content is: I love this man. The sub-theme/form is: I love this man and this is what this love feels like. It feels like we are a married couple. I have forgotten the house I grew up in because you have enveloped me in this bubble, my own private space. Every sigh of mine is heated with my lust. You’ll have to forgive the oddness of translating Hindi/Tamil lines/conceits into English, but I am just trying to make this point.

Again, this is not to praise individual writers/composers — but to praise the songs as a whole, the songs that carry a “theme” forward like a tone poem. One of my favourite Ilaiyaraja-composed tone-poem songs is that Vairamuthu gem: Ponmaalai pozhudhu. The overarching theme/content is: I just smoked a joint and I am happy. But the beautiful sub-theme/form is an ode to how everything this man sees around him is making him happy: the evening, which makes him imagine the sky as a woman changing her blue clothes for yellow ones; the sky that, like a bodhi tree, is telling him that good times are near; the chirping birds; the nearing night.

The “tone poems” stand out from the songs where the words are just fillers. And to illustrate this, let me look at the last Raja/Vairamuthu film, Punnagai Mannan, which has the beautiful Edhedho ennam valarthen. The overarching theme/form: I love you. But the sub-theme/content is generic. There should be a constant hint of sadness that hints at the sadness to come. (It’s there in Raja’s music; this is not a “happy” love song that these words suggest: “nee dhaane punnagai mannan / un rani naane“.) But it’s not consistently there in the words, the sub-theme-form. Only the lines in the first stanza hint at melancholy: for a while now I have been in prison, and only your love keeps me alive; only a few buds bloom into flowers/many of them just wither away; tell me why, because I am not just another flower.

Again, I am not saying the rest of the song is “bad” — just that the sub-theme doesn’t carry through, and we get a bunch of generic constructions: come embrace me, et cetera. The sub-theme/content can also come through the unexpected use of words. One (relatively) recent lyricist I adore for the ability to turn a theme/content into an exquisite sub-theme/form is Thamarai. One especial favourite: Annal mele pani thuli, from Varanam Aayiram. The overarching theme/content is a woman’s feelings for a man with a complicated romantic past. The sub-theme/content is also pretty much the same. But the lines shape the woman’s feelings with such wrenching ecstasy that you think you know exactly what her character arc is. A sample: When two shores are breached and the tides rise, what will rescue us? A lighthouse? No. It’s enough if your waves of love take my ashore in my dreams.

My deepest apologies, again, for the clumsiness of the English translations. I did not have much time to “craft” this post. In other words, it is all content, no form. (Hah! That’s karma for you, BR. You deserve this!) But yes, that’s my sweet spot when it comes to songs: great music, plus great lyrics that take a theme and run with it. It’s not that music alone cannot make a song, but if the words are just “filler” and make no sense as a whole (Seer kondu vaa, from Naan Paadum Paadal, for example), then the song takes a dip in my quality-book. Or if this happens: a cliched idea is reused. For example: with you, everything is great; without you, things are bad. We see this in Seer kondu vaa (“Theendatha podhu / En dhegam vaada / Nee theendum podhu / Inbangal kooda”) and Sundari kannal oru seithi (“Maathangalum vaaram aagum / Naanum neeyum kKoodinaal / Varangalum maatham aagum / Paathai maari odinaal”). This, too, makes a song take a dip in my quality-book. YMMV. Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks. Please read the scheme information and other related documents before investing.