Nadodi Paattu

Its been a long time since my last post, so here Iam back to revive this almost dead blog from ashes. This is so typical of me, laziness, procrastination and just lack of will. I have now made up my mind to atleast blog a lot lot more frequently than I have earlier. I also hope that this enthusiasm doesnt get dampened as is the case with other things that I start. What better post to start it again than something about one of my more consistent interests and passion: Tamil Film Music, especially the compositions of Music Directors in films of the 70s, 80s and early 90s.

There are quite a few songs that are my favourites when it comes to Tamil Film Music. They are favourites because they are good compositions characterized by great singing, wonderful interludes, fantastic preludes that take you into a different world, catchy beats and well suited lyrics. Then there are some that grow on you as you listen to them more and more. One such song is the song “Nadodi paatu paada thamthana thamthana thaalam” from the movie Harichandran. The movie was another run of the mill Karthick film of the late 90s, a time when he was trying to stay alive in the film industry with the “neither here nor there” kind of bland family films. The songs of the movie were composed by the Music Director trio “Aagosh” (Anand, Gopal Rao and Shaleen Sharma). Aagosh has done quite a lot of jingles before venturing into film music. Their first tamil movie was “Shakthi” and they went on to do another film “Kodeeswaran” that was supposed to be the launching pad for K.T.Kunjumon’s son.

I remember that S.P.B once said in a television interview that a great composition is one which is attractive with just the vocals sans any orchestration. He gave the example of the song “Keladi Kanmani paadagan sangathi” from the movie “Puthu Puthu Arthangal“. The song that I have picked also falls into that category.  I tried to analyze a little bit into the aspects that made it attractive to me and it was nothing but this song is a simple melody with very suitable, meaningful and simple lyrics. In my opinion, its like a lecture or a presentation made by a very clear mind. I strongly feel that the melody did have some effect on the lyrics or the other way around.

There is very little orchestration in the entire song (except for one interlude, where the chenda is played, the only bit that was a little overdone). The song is accompanied by a very light, melodious and infectious guitar strumming throughout. A.R.Rahman had the habit of having one such song in almost all of his movies, early in his career. “Vellai Pookal” from Kannathil Muththamittal, “Uyirum Neeye” from Pavithra, “Vidukathaiya” from Muthu, “Nenje Nenje” from Ratchagan are a few that come to my mind. Of all these except for “Nenje Nenje” and “Uyirum Neeye” others havent been so recollectable or long lasting.

The other thing about this song is S.P.B’s rendition. I feel that S.P.B is best when he sings songs that do not have a lot of phrases in higher octaves, are slow in tempo and where there is very little scope of vocal gimmicks. Songs like “Poonthalir aada” from Nenjaththai Killaadhe and “Manadhil Enna Ninaivugalo” from Poonthalir.

You can listen to “Nadodi Paatu Paada” in the following link

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/tamil/s/movie_name.4473/

The other song that is very much like this is the song “Unakkenna Mele Nindraai” from Simla Special.