SONGS SUNG WITH VISIBLE EMOTION

 

Lyrics of a song convey a message but occasionally a singer overwhelms the listener by physically displaying emotions as if the lyrics apply personally to him/her.

Sometimes that is true. Eric Clapton wrote "Tears in Heaven"  for his four year old son who lost his life in a fall from the 53rd floor of a New York apartment. Clapton isolated himself for a while and wrote the song to express his grief and heal himself. The song is Clapton's best selling single.

At the other end of the spectrum is Donna Summer's hugely controversial "Love to Love You Baby" considered explicit because its breathy and gasping "oohs" and "aahs" sounded so real that it was banned by the BBC and several others. Ban or not, the 17-minute song was a great hit and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame lists it in the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

Let's recall a few songs listening to which I have often wondered if the singer was actually feeling the emotion he/she was portraying. 

The earliest such song for me was Johnnie Ray's "Cry" which he recorded in 1951 when I had just started listening to English music. Listening to it and watching its video, one feels that Ray is truly suffering and fighting hard to avoid breaking out in tears.

Tom Jones has a number of songs where he seems overtaken by emotion. His sighs and groans mark "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" and his version of "Yesterday." Jones brings out raw passion in his top hit "Delilah" hearing which one can visualise the knife being plunged deep into the unfaithful lover.

Among female singers, Shirley Bassey stands out with her "Never, Never, Never". Using her wide vocal range and singing in varying tempo, Bassey really seems to be personally suffering from the dilemma brought out in the lyrics opening with "I'd like to run away from you but if you never found me, I would die" and the refrain "Impossible to live with you but I know, I could never live without you, for whatever you do, I never, never, never want to be in love with anyone but you."

A Brazilian singer, Morris Albert wrote and sang "Feelings", a sad song in which the singer is "trying to forget my feelings of love" and losing oneself in "feelings like I've never lost you and feelings like I never really had you here in my arms". Touchingly sung by Albert himself, there are numerous versions of it and the other day, I chanced upon one of the best by Nina Simone at the Montreux Festival in 1978. Her start/stop vocals displaying confusion and frustration and her appeal to the audience to get involved in the singing make for an unforgettable performance sure to touch the hardest heart.

A top hit sung with oodles of emotion is Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U". The song is about longing and desperation of an abandoned lover which O'Connor brings out excellently with pain in her voice. The video recording shows her walking alone in a park focussing on her face which clearly brings out the turmoil in her heart. The video ends with a tear rolling down on each side of her face. A tearjerker if ever there was one!

Two favourite oldies of mine need a mention. In "Kiss of Fire", Caterina Valente's hissing voice makes you visualise her meeting fire with fire in the kiss of her lover. And Frankie Laine, who was a boxer before becoming a singer, packs a powerful punch in his "Jezebel", an immoral, scheming and shameless woman. In the words of the song, "If ever a pair of eyes promised paradise, deceiving me, grieving me, leaving me blue, Jezebel it was you. If ever the devil's plan was made to torment man, it was you, Jezebel, it was you."

Phew! We need to lighten our mood so let's move to a couple of cheerful numbers. "The Happy Wanderer" is a centuries old German song first sung in English by The Stargazers in 1953 preserving its happy, carefree and wandering spirit with the refrain "Valeri, valera, valeri, valera" followed by laughter, "Hahahahahahahahaa". And in "Drinking Song", Mario Lanza uses his tenor voice with full effect to make one want to raise a stein immediately to one's lips. As he exhorts, "Drink, drink, let the toast start, may young hearts never part! Drink, drink, drink, let every true lover salute his sweetheart! Let's drink!"  

Time to say 'Ciao' and I turn to the charming voice of Demis Roussos who is brilliant in bittersweetly combining sadness with hope in "Goodbye, My Love, Goodbye".

"Goodbye my love goodbye

Goodbye and au revoir

As long as you remember me I'll never be too far

Goodbye my love goodbye

I always will be true

So hold me in your dreams till I come back to you."  

WHAT'S IN A NAME? PLENTY, DEAR WILLY!

I was born in Muttra and while my grandparents were bringing me up, Mummy was studying in Benares before she moved to Allahabad to join my two Mamas. After Rajasthan High Court was formed, we moved to Jeypore where I did my major schooling. Deciding to join the NDA, I went to Bangalore for an interview and got selected. NDA was in a town near Poona and on successful completion of training, I joined the Navy in Bombay. On to Cochin near Trivandrum and Alleppey. Before retirement, Navy would take me to Vizagapatam, Madras, Ootacamund, Calcutta, etc.

If you wish to see these places on the map, please do so. Or no, don't. They don't exist! Instead, look for Mathura, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Alappuzha, Vishakhapatnam, Chennai, Udagamandalam and Kolkata.

One of the first English records Vinnie Mama brought home back in the '50s after joining the Navy was "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by The Four Lads. Its lyrics say it all-

"Istanbul was Constantinople

Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople.....

Every gal in Constantinople lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople

So if you've a date in Constantinople, she'll be waiting in Istanbul.....

Why did Constantinople get the works,

That's nobody's business but the Turks."

I loved the songs and its humorous lyrics used to delight me as I wondered along the lines, "Why did Constantinople get the works?" 

And now it's happened in India and is no laughing matter!

It started with changing spellings. That was quite appropriate as the haw-haw British spelt names based on their Oxford accent. So it was nice when 'Muttra' was changed to 'Mathura', 'Jeypore' became simply 'Jaipur',  'Cawnpore' was spelt as 'Kanpur' and 'Jubbalpore' as 'Jabalpur'. 

Then followed change of names to align with traditional ethnic pronunciation. So 'Orissa' was changed to 'Odisha', 'Pondicherry' to 'Puducherry' and 'Benares' to 'Varanasi'. 

The same logic was applied in changing 'Bangalore' and 'Mysore' to 'Bengaluru' and 'Mysuru', 'Alleppey' and 'Calicut' to 'Alappuzha' and 'Kozikhode', 'Trivandrum' to 'Thiruvananthapuram', 'Ootacamund' to 'Udagamandalam' and 'Vizagapatam' to 'Vishakhapatnam' though people still refer to the last two as 'Ooty' and 'Vizag'. And 'Bombay' was changed to 'Mumbai', 'Poona' to 'Pune', Cochin' to 'Kochi', 'Calcutta' to 'Kolkata' and 'Baroda' to 'Vadodara'.

The net was widened further with the stated object of shedding colonial and Moghul legacy and assert our own linguistic and cultural identity by giving the name an historical, religious or political significance. So the names changed to completely new ones; Allahabad became Prayagraj, Faizabad is now Ayodhya, Ahmednagar is Ahilyanagar, Aurangabad to Chhatrapati Sambhal Nagar, Osmanabad to Dharashiv and Madras to Chennai.

Some changes are not that simple to explain. Why was it necessary to change Uttaranchal to Uttarakhand or Gurgaon to Gurugram? Poona which had already been changed to Pune is now being reconsidered for a change to Jijapur. And there is a long list of proposals for other changes particularly from Uttar Pradesh, eg, Aligarh to Harigarh.

Surprisingly, Lucknow remains unchanged so far despite being a clear candidate for correction as the present name is quite obviously a British mispronunciation of the city believed to be named after Laxman, Lord Ram's brother.

Lately, there is a clamour to rename Delhi as Indraprastha. If that happens, names of all the Indian cities I have spent my life in would have changed and make me wonder if I have lived in a fictional Cuckooland which does not exist!

Oh yes, a city I have lived in that hasn't changed its name is Singapore. Singaporeans are quite comfortable with their country and city state's name no matter if it has a Sanskrit origin and named by the British. They are equally at ease with the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of contemporary Singapore, prominently located at the historic landing site on the north bank of Singapore River. And right in the centre of the city's business district is the famous Raffles Place. 

Singapore ranks at best as the 176th largest country or 20th smallest in the world. It does not appear to be worried in the least about its past history and legacy causing a colonial or slavery mindset. Ask any Singaporean Indian or Chinese of his origins and he will proudly tell you that he is only a Singaporean. Among Singapore's popular patriotic songs sung during National Day celebrations are  "Count on me, Singapore", "Stand Up for Singapore" and "We Are Singapore", all sung in English.

India is the largest country in the world by population, fourth by economy and seventh by area. After nearly eighty years of independence, should we really harbour any sense of insecurity about colonial or slavery mindset?