A.R. Rahman's magic recreated

In 1993, Maniratnam and AR Rahman teamed up for the movie Thiruda Thiruda. AR Rahman of course had some very fresh sounding tracks and here is one of those, sung again, with a lot of that magic recreated. I don’t understand one bit of the lyrics but it is the melody that I find mesmerizing:

It is all in the voices.

What a Wonderful World :)

He was a security person at the gates of the little campus in which our office is situated. Being a senior citizen, he had a nearly toothless smile. What set him apart was that he used to salaam everyone who passed by. Initially, I did not acknowledge his salaam as I just wasn't used to strangers greeting me so cheerfully, as if I were an old friend. But then one day I thought, 'What the heck!' and started saluting him back! That was fun! This man was always so happy each morning I saw him. He greeted the world that went by and the fact that no one seemed to wave back at him never discouraged him.

Now I don't see him anymore, standing there, waving. He was so old and frail, I wonder where he is now. The strange part is that he looked well beyond the age of retirement.
He reminds me of one of my favorite songs, Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World':

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And i think to myself:"What a wonderful world!"

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to my self:"What a wonderful world!"

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying "How do you do."
They really say: "I love you!"

I hear babies crying I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself:"What a wonderful world!"
Yes, I think to myself:"What a wonderful world!"

I have seen some people say that this song is too happy for our times. You might ask that if people everywhere are hating and killing each other, how can someone be so happy? There may or may not be an answer for this depending on how you look at it. A part of the answer might lie in the fact that this song was written when racial discrimination was high. When equal rights seemed to be a distant dream. A dream that is now reality...

Watch him sing! :)

Sigur Rós

The new face of rock. The saviors of rock. Taking rock music into the new millennium. Overtly melodramatic (actually, I like melodrama!!). These are the things being said about Sigur Rós. I am completely entranced by their music and learnt this when I started searching information on these people out of curiosity. I think the only reason for their not being as popular as they should be could be due to the fact that the music scene is simply dominated by the US.

Interestingly, one of their albums is an abstract work. It is simply named ( ) and the songs have no names and no lyrics. Essentially meaningless gibberish that the singer sings with the music and we just have to make of it what we want to. Abstract music...

About three of their tracks were featured in the Tom Cruise starrer 'Vanilla Sky'...

Sigur Rós - "Heima" Trailer (Hoppipolla Version):



Make sure you watch the ending of this music video:

Come Away With Me

More than a year ago when I searched for it at PlanetM they were out of stock. Yesterday, while browsing through the music folders copied from my bro's computer, I found this song!

Listening to this song is like lying in the cool grass on a summer evening while the you hear the gentle sound of leaves rustling in the breeze...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBKcKQHZXks

Come Away With Me
-Norah Jones

Come away with me in the night

Come away with me

And I will write you a song

Come away with me on a bus

Come away where they can't tempt us

With their lies

I want to walk with you

On a cloudy day

In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high

So won't you try to come

Come away with me and we'll kiss

On a mountaintop

Come away with me

And I'll never stop loving you

And I want to wake up with the rain

Falling on a tin roof

While I'm safe there in your arms

So all I ask is for you

To come away with me in the night

Come away with me