Fugue and Fusion: Payanangal Mudivathillai

The wait’s been worth it. Been waiting to watch this movie for the last 2 years. Finally managed to get a CD (original that too!) in the recent sale organized by Raj Video Vision. Amazing print, sound quality… What more can I ask for?...
I love movies which are song based and where the protagonist plays a musician, barring BOYS. Payanangal Mudivathillai was not just another movie of that kind. THE BEST I’ve seen in a long time… Amazing music. All songs stand out, wonderful BGMs and of course Mohan’s innocent smile..:-)
My friend told me this – When the movie was released in 1982, people would watch the movie ONLY for the Ilaiyanila song and walk out after the song got over. The song comes within the first 10 minutes of the movie! People would repeatedly buy tickets, come to watch the song and then leave!
Here’s an anecdote – Vairamuthu initially wrote ‘Salavai Nila Pozhigiradhe’ which was later changed by Ilaiyaraaja to ‘Ilaiya Nila Pozhigiradhe’…! I actually had the opportunity to personally talk to Vairamuthu and ask him about this when I met him during some function at the Residency Towers…:-).. He replied, "Parava illaye thambi, nyabagam vechunduirukkiye"...:-)
Here’s one more – The actual interludes composed by Ilaiyaraaja for the song were much longer than those in the vinyl. They were cut out later for the movie. The original scores surely would be lying somewhere for sure within Ilaiyaraaja’s massive library. That’s one reason why I desperately wanted to him to perform that song during Andrum Indrum Endrum, to hear the original interludes which never featured in the movie.
This is the first and the last Ilaiyaraaja song to have so many guitar pieces in it. There is a rumour that Ilaiyaraaja himself played the interlude, prelude and postlude for the song.
Look at the fate, I wanted to praise the movie and I’ve ended up praising nothing but the song. That’s the power of Ilaiyaraaja’s music. It was actually around that period that for the first time a Music Director’s photo started appearing in the cassettes and movie posters. It was around that period when Ilaiyaraaja was at his peak and went on to do over 250 films in the following 6 years.

Ilaiyaraaja’vin payanangal’um mudivathillai…hee..

Ajit

Posted by Ajit on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 at 10:06 PM | Permalink

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