My beloved turmoil

Whatever I want to say,
It's ruined by my words..
My words..

My beloved,

What to do, I've fallen in love,
I'm unable to live, unable to die.

This song has huge contributions from my friend Gayatri (G3). We are like minded fans of A.R.Rahman and enjoy all of his compositions with much fervor. So for this song, we decided to sit together to see if we could ruin a few ARR compositions together. We wanted to do a medley. Before reading the rest of the post, see if you can figure out the 3 songs in this medley. 2 of them are ARR compositions and the last one is by Clinton Cerejo.

The 3 songs are:
Jo bhi main - Composition by A.R.Rahman for the movie Rockstar.
Aaromale - Composition by A.R.Rahman for the movie Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya.
Baina - Composition by Clinton Cerejo for Coke Studio.

I always wanted to play Jo bhi main, one of my most most favorite ARR compositions. There is a sense of lightness in the song even though the lyrics are kind of on a sad note. My nephew absolutely loves the intro to the song (when he was as young as a year old, my sister is raising him right). I mostly sing the intro part of the song. So, when we were looping and playing this part, G3 and I realized there is some scope for another layer here. We were playing with bass riffs and then suddenly found Aaromale. I was pumped. The first time I heard this song. I thought, yes, this is definitely Pink Floyd. To showcase G3's vocal abilities we picked up the solo interlude in the middle of the song. She has done an absolutely fantastic job! As we were finishing this up, the interlude leads to a chorus in the original song. We thought there is another chorus, which has similar delivery and tone to it. So that is how Baina came into the picture. If you have not listened to Clinton Cerejo, check out his coke studio stuff and a recent Hindi movie soundtrack Jugni. You will thank me later. Musically, this is how our experiment came together.

We had a surprise in store for us after we finished the track. To name it, we were researching the lyrics we used. Note that, we initially had no regard for whether the lyrics gelled as a theme or not (I personally am not huge on lyrics of any song). This was supposed to only be a musical medley. But coincidentally, the lyrics kind of started to make sense.

Jo bhi main kehna chahoon,
Barbaad jaren alfaaz mere..
Alfaaz mere..

(Whatever I want to say,
It's ruined by my words..
My words..)

Aaromale,

(My beloved,)

Ab lagan lagi ki kariye,
Na jisakiye, na mariye.

(What to do, I've fallen in love,
I'm unable to live, unable to die.)

It could be seen as a cry of someone who is torn between his mixed feelings unable to express it. Hence, 'My beloved turmoil'. I went to a Steven Wilson concert recently and he mentioned how most of his music is depressing (\m/) and called it - poetry of melancholy. These lyrics would fit right in.