Music Review: Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu
VETTAIYAADU VILAIYAADU
The latest Gautam Menon-Harris Jayaraj combination is something of a hit-or-miss, but the hits, thankfully, outnumber the misses.
MAR 19, 2006 - EVERYONE KNOWS THAT GAUTAM MENON’S MOVIES are synonymous with Harris Jayaraj’s music, but no one talks about the silent third partner: the lyricist Thamarai. Who but a woman could have dreamed up the gorgeous Vaseegara (Minnalé), which wasn’t just about being in love but about being a woman in love! Could a man have confessed to yearnings such as oru porvaikkul iru thookkam, indicating that love, sometimes, is simply a couple’s shared slumber under a sheet? Now, in Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, she writes about love from a man’s point of view, Vaa vandhu ennai sernthidu, en tholgalil theynthidu. He isn’t merely asking his lover for an embrace; he’s asking her for an embrace so tight, she’ll abrade away against his shoulders. Oh, that’s passion!
But very little of this passion carries over to the music for the two love duets. Paartha Mudhal Naale (Bombay Jayashree, Unni Menon; is this the first time Menon is singing for Kamal Haasan since the mid-eighties’ Ponmaané in Oru Kaidhiyin Diary?) and Uyirilé (Mahalakshmi, Srinivas) are both beautifully sung – but not much more. Jayaraj dresses up the first number with harmonica bursts and the second one with mournful, Yo Yo Ma-in-Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-style cello bowing, but the former is a disappointing rehash of Jayaraj’s own Ayyayyo Pudichirukku (Saamy) and Suttum Vizhi (Ghajini), and the latter is something like AR Rahman’s Porkalam (Thenali), a nice-enough tune but without a hook, a meandering melody looping upon itself unto infinity.
Thankfully, there are three other reasons to buy the album. The shamelessly catchy Neruppé (Francom Solar Sai, Sowmya Raoh) is set to the beats we first heard in the Kaliyon ka chaman remix and then in the May Maadham number in Jay Jay (by Bharadwaj) – but this version, with Arabic inflections, is the best; just thinking of it gets my feet tapping. Then there’s a refreshingly unusual hero-introduction song, Karka Karka (Devan, Tippu, Nakul, Andrea). While in a Vijay or Ajith starrer, this would have been a straightforward gaana item, here it’s an elegant, satin-smooth affair (save for some gratuitous hip-hop affectations). Expectedly, it’s a number that deifies the leading man – he’s learnt to walk on water! he carries his death in his shirt pocket! – so it’s only fitting that it sounds almost chant-like, like a shloka set to a high-bass counterpoint and the barest hint of strings. It works wonderfully.
But the most interesting is Manjal veyyil (Vijay, Nakul and Hariharan, straining at the upper registers), and the reason it’s so interesting is a bit technical. The melody of a typical Tamil – even Indian – film song can be mapped out along these lines: Opening, First Interlude, Stanza, (back to) Opening, Second Interlude, (repeat of) Stanza, (and end with) Opening. This one’s mapping, though, is off the chart: Chorus, Opening, Chorus, Opening, Chorus, Opening, Chorus, Interlude, Opening, Stanza, Chorus, Opening, (and fade out with) Chorus. Phew! With an utterly dreamy fusion of disco and rock, this is the track that most restored my faith in the Gautam Menon-Harris Jayaraj combination.
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After all that talk about HJ…
Uyirile was my favorite pallavi in the album. The charanam’s were a bit of a letdown but they didnt destroy the song, so thats OK. I dont know if it was a continuity issue or something that was done on purpose, but during the second charanam in the visuals in the boat in Kamal mouths half the lyrics in a sentence and just stops mid sentence and Jytohika responds in kind when her turn comes up. I thoguht that was interesting.
Asking Kamal to suddenly lip sync to portions of Uyirile was the single worst decision by the director. It was amateursih to see Kamal do that and outright embarassing, considering they were trying to portray “mature” love and had tried to picturize it in Balu Mahendra style with the song playing in the background which was the right approach. what was Gautam thinking? Or was he thinking at all? Because didnt Gautham say he was’nt even interested in picturizing a couple of songs and it was done in his absence? It shows.
Personally I didnt find anything special about Manjal Veyyil to rave about it. And Manjal Veyyil isnt the first song to defy conventional structure or anything. Rahman and Ilayaraja and probably even imaginatively so. Roobaroo was a fine recent example. Manjal Veyyil turns repetetive pretty soon.
Overall the album was underwhelming as it almost always is when the MD is HJ.
Vijay: “And Manjal Veyyil isnt the first song to defy conventional structure or anything” Of course it isn’t. Whatever gave you that idea?
brangan: I’m glad you mentioned Thamarai. She’s the sole reason I trip on HJ. And Bombay Jayashree…who else could have done justice to Vaseegara? I was reading Erica Jong’s most-recent memoir and Thamarai popped in my head as I paused to ponder this: “A writer takes the universal whore of language and turns her back into a virgin.” I mean, WOW!
You were talking about songs conjuring up vividly beautiful images; I’ve found most of her songs to do that. Vairamuthu’s “Ilaiya Nilaa” (among many many others) also comes to mind (I know Raj, who’s vaccinated himself against Vairamuthu, would vehemently disagree). Sheer poetry set to tune…nature as a metaphor for yet another tour de force — love — what’s not to be swayed by? I loved all of the VV songs, btw. Particularly Uyirile and Manjal Veyyil (not for the explanation you give above that’s Greek to me, but for the lyrics: “…pesi pesi thirthapinnum
etho ondru kuraiyuthe” reminded me of that Azhagan song (one from which I’ve regularly derived vicarious pleasure, not being big into conversations myself, phone or otherwise). And I liked how “oru kaathum kaathum vettikolla, iru thandavaalum otti chella” embodies, so beautifully, how two people who have no business coming together, end up doing so…and now what next? (Haven’t seen VV yet, but intend to.)