A.R.Rahman: I feel the only healing thing in life is love
| Dec 5, 2017, 15:44 IST
Music legend A.R.Rahman has composed songs in different genres. He has also sung in various languages. Rahman weaves beautifully with the romantic tunes. He says he loves doing multiple genres, “I love doing multiple genres, like working with a symphony, Sufi group, Rajasthani group, or a hip hop person, doing a rap... So, I like to be born again in music and I go there without any expectations.”
The music-composer says he doesn’t remember the lyrics of every song, “In concerts, I don’t remember the lyrics to songs. That’s my drawback, because I like to move on and explore different things. When you memorise a song, you stay with it, and you can’t just trip off and go to another zone.”
“As a human being, I have seen many things in my life. But I feel the only healing thing in life is love. Love could be romantic, divine, compassionate or kind, but that comes in the choice of ragas or notes. It could become love songs, bhajans, qawwalis or anything... Like Khwaja Mere Khwaja, if you put different lyrics, it will be a love song. ’The Bombay’ (1995) theme was inspired by the riots. And it was extremely opposite to what happened. I always feel blessed that as an artist you can do that. You can take something very raw and uninspiring, and do a completely contrasting thing to it, expressing it in a more poetic and beautiful way.”
A.R.Rahman talks about how he gets into a particular zone of genre, “There’s a lot of contribution from lyrics, too. Sometimes you are just doing the tune, which could be anything, but then the lyrics actually fill the whole void and make it complete. And I used to wonder, these are very similar tunes, then why did this tune become [a] hit and that one did not? For example when I do tunes, sometimes I give a melody which I think would be a hit to probably a smaller filmmaker (I always feel that I should not deny anybody), and another tune to another person. It’s also the way the filmmakers respected it, and the lyricists write on it... all these matter a lot. Sometimes good work gets unnoticed because it’s given to the wrong people.”
Stay tuned for more updates.
The music-composer says he doesn’t remember the lyrics of every song, “In concerts, I don’t remember the lyrics to songs. That’s my drawback, because I like to move on and explore different things. When you memorise a song, you stay with it, and you can’t just trip off and go to another zone.”
“As a human being, I have seen many things in my life. But I feel the only healing thing in life is love. Love could be romantic, divine, compassionate or kind, but that comes in the choice of ragas or notes. It could become love songs, bhajans, qawwalis or anything... Like Khwaja Mere Khwaja, if you put different lyrics, it will be a love song. ’The Bombay’ (1995) theme was inspired by the riots. And it was extremely opposite to what happened. I always feel blessed that as an artist you can do that. You can take something very raw and uninspiring, and do a completely contrasting thing to it, expressing it in a more poetic and beautiful way.”
A.R.Rahman talks about how he gets into a particular zone of genre, “There’s a lot of contribution from lyrics, too. Sometimes you are just doing the tune, which could be anything, but then the lyrics actually fill the whole void and make it complete. And I used to wonder, these are very similar tunes, then why did this tune become [a] hit and that one did not? For example when I do tunes, sometimes I give a melody which I think would be a hit to probably a smaller filmmaker (I always feel that I should not deny anybody), and another tune to another person. It’s also the way the filmmakers respected it, and the lyricists write on it... all these matter a lot. Sometimes good work gets unnoticed because it’s given to the wrong people.”
Stay tuned for more updates.