ARE VIEWERS TAKEN FOR GRANTED?
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By Behindwoods Visitor Sivaram L
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kalakalappu-mayakkam-enna-15-09-12

Haven't we all heard about the stories behind how lyrics for songs come up? With minor differences here and there, the crux of a majority of the stories we have heard go this way:

1. The director books a room in a posh star hotel or the director and lyricist meet at the music director's place or Malaysia or Tunisia or whatever!

2. They discuss the situation, the phones and tones needed to give the feel, some particular words that the director expects from the lyricist.

3. The lyricist comes up with a pallavi & 2 charanams that are 'IN CONTEXT' with the situation the director has explained & the musician composes the tune.

I will give two examples on why I doubt if the third item in the list above really happens!

I was listening to the restaurant-refurbishment song from Kalakalappu @ Masala Cafe. The first lines go this way: "Mokkamanusha, nee oppukkuchappa; Dappadappa, nee kaali dappa!" How does this ever relate to the context that are intended to explain that the heroes are trying to get back their restaurant business up and running again with a novel idea of developing cuisine that is hitherto unheard of!

There is literally no connection between the visuals and the lines! To connect it with the hotel scenario, the lyricist comes up with lines like "Kozhikaal soup vechaan, aatukaal soup vechaan, missed call soup vepaana?" (?!) Apart from being catchy, what other purpose does it serve, yours truly wonders! It is acceptable if listless lines like this appear in Intro songs as such songs, themselves, are unrelated to the film's context by default. That is why a line like "Pachapulla pinjuveral anjukkum pathukkum vela senjaa...thaaipaalu nakku coca-cola!" that comes irrelevantly in a kuthu song is pardonable! But context based songs that set the tempo for a film ought to be more responsibly carved. Coming back to Mokka Manusha, If those lines are not enough, there comes this line "One side pondaati, one side v*****ti, balance pannitaavan dhaan killadi", that too sung by the heroine of the film following which the hero is shown to appear gleefully proud; shouldn't these lines be the ones that should see the sharp end of the Censor knife, instead of scenes in films depicting gruesome violence true to context?!

Here's the other example. The already controversial song "Kaadhal en Kaadhal" from Mayakkam Enna. Maybe, the song was written and visualized for a different situation in the film; maybe that video got leaked later; but what I saw on screen when the song was on had absolutely no connection with the story narrated thus far in the film. Dhanush sings "Aayiram sonniye kaadhula vaangala", "Chinna chinnadha dream ellam kanden, acid oothittaa kannukkulla" and his friend replies "Konjakoodaava worth e illa". If anyone can relate these lines to the film's context, you are welcome to explain it to me! What pains more is the fact that the same film has aptly framed lines for two wonderfully situated songs in "Oda oda dhooram" and "Piraithedum iravile".

These are only two tiny droplets in an ocean of such songs and lyrics! There are quite a lot more where the lyrics are out-of-context; the question that eventually follows after pondering about these songs is: "Are the viewers taken for granted?". Are cine-goers considered fools or do film-makers themselves don't take these seriously or is it the fact that people never look so much in detail when songs are 'On'; Are songs just for mp3 players and car-rides? If that is the case, I have no problem with those two songs as well. But if they try to explain things in a film's flow, I would expect a lot more, Wouldn't you too?


Sivaram L
ucanpostme@gmail.com

Tags :Kalakalappu,Mayakkam Enna,Kaadhal En Kaadhal

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