ENGLISH AND TAMIL LYRICISTS

Just so you know how vela [jobless] I am…..

Is it to be or not to be? / And I replied, 'Oh, why ask me?' [Michael Altman]

I decided to compare the 10 most popular lyrics in English and Tamil. Of course, I googled and began with what seemed a simple set of keywords: 10 most popular English lyrics. I got a whole bunch of pertinent lists. I chose the first link on the page. It had the lyrics, copied and pasted into my file, no problem, all done quickly.

The parallel keywords for Tamil lyrics - 10 most popular Tamil film lyrics - came up with links to themed compilations of best songs by decades, singers and composers, not a list of songs through the decades across singers and composers. It was only when I tried 10 most popular Tamil film songs of all time lyrics that I could even get to a suitable list. I chose the first link that came up. Of the 50 top listed, I chose the first 10 and then googled the lyrics for each song, a slightly more onerous process. No, not the most scientific method and I would certainly not accept it from any of my doctoral students. True, not a totally random data set, given Google’s algorithm for popularity but sufficient unto the day. And this is for fun, not a dissertation or even a journal article, only for my blog so I can do it anyway I want, I reassured myself.

But I find a darkened corner/ Because I still miss someone [Johnny Cash and Ron Cash]

Lyricists are not given their due, we all know, but I was given a jarring reminder of the many ways in which they are overlooked. While the site for the English lyrics contained an attribution to the lyricist, the Tamil links didn’t. They may credit the movie, composer and singers, sometimes even the actors, but not the lyricist. Even the pages with the lyrics didn’t. How insulting is that, that you care to transcribe the lyric, even transliterate in English script, but don’t care to acknowledge the person whose creative output this is? Wikipedia was much more helpful, once I got to the movie page and looked under the Music section, though this detail was not always included in the Intro section, where other credits maybe listed.

 

Enna Solla Pogiraai (What are you going to say?) [Vairamuthu]

I had the same questions that many of are probably raring to ask: Which era? Which songs? Do I know or remember these songs? Does it include my favourites? [The list of songs is in the blog entry titled Most Famous Lyrics: English & Tamil. Feel free to jump to it now but come back and finish reading this post😊]

Yielding to habits of tedious research routine built over years as an academic, I immediately categorized the lists and analyzed them for ‘demographic data.’ The distribution across both languages is pretty tight, encompassing mostly two decades, 1960-79 for English and the 1980s and 1990s for Tamil. More specifically,

1960s - 4 English, 0 Tamil

1970s - 4 English, 1 Tamil

1980s - 1 English, 3 Tamil

1990s – 1 English, 5 Tamil

2000s – 0 English, 1 Tamil

Marakka Manam Kooduthillaiye (I cannot forget) [Vaali]

The English list is full of what are obviously classics of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and Joni Mitchell, not to mention the then-14-year old Mike Altman. Vaali and Vairamuthu are the only featured lyricists in the Tamil list, nary a one by my favourite Kannadasan. Very disappointing but on second thoughts not unexpected, given the eras covered.

Is it that Tamil song fans seem to have a much shorter memory than listeners of English songs? More likely attributable to Google’s algorithm. The internet is not my generation’s go-to for music, which would feed the algorithm to influence lists reaching back to the 1950s and 1960s. And I am not sure enough of us will change our habits for Kannadasan to take his rightful place in lists such as these. Sigh!

A second reason could be that the list is a reflection of the popularity of the composer, and this is still a list of songs that are highly regarded and not lyrics that are prized. So, the major credit goes to Ilayaraja and AR Rehman rather than to Vaali or Vairamuthu. Don’t diehard Ilayaraja fans swamp the internet now? After all, even a pure classicist like Sanjay Subrahmanyam has created a whole ragabased on a phrase from an Ilayaraja song.

Kondu Sellum En Manadhai (Will capture my heart) [Vaali]

What about the lyrics themselves? Do they deserve the accolades and recognition of Top 10?

Bob Dylan definitely deserves the Nobel Literature prize. Masters Of War stands head and shoulders above any of the Tamil ones listed, not only for its relevance now with the Ukraine war (or should it be the Russia war since it is the aggressor?) It has everything a lyric should have. The meters are brilliant; no more analysis since this is not a treatise! The juxtaposition of building death machines and hiding from their devastation in the first verse is just the opening salvo. The horrific imagery of young blood flowing to no purpose in Verse 4 echoed in the last two lines of the next verse is indelible. A literary allusion loop of betrayal by Judas in verse 3 is closed four verses later All the money you made / Will never buy back your soul. The poetic device of anaphora, lines beginning with the same phrase, is most effectively used: 5 out of 7 lines in the first verse begin You that build … and You that hide… followed through in verse 3 with I see through. Alliteration such as … my baby/Unborn and Unnamed’ is used sparingly and deals a hammerblow of grief. There isn’t an emotion this lyric doesn’t touch on but the overwhelming beauty is in the restraint of the poetry despite its portrayal of violence. The ultimate irony!

Paadariyen Padippariyen by Vairamuthu probably makes the most judicious use of poetic devices, a lot but not overwhelming, unlike most of the others in this list. Lots of alliteration especially with ‘p,’ beginning with the first line of the chorus Paadariyen padippariyen pallikkoodandhaanariyen. Don’t miss the assonance with the vowel sound ‘a’ as in Pazhagina bhaashayila padippadhu paavamilla. Juxtaposition of familiar terms in music almost takes the sting out of the line in Ennamo raagam ennannamo thaalam (Some raga, all kinds of rhythmic cycles). The sly social commentary in Thalaiya aattum puriyaadha koottam [(They) will shake their heads (in appreciation), this crowd that doesn’t understand) is what lifts this lyric from the mundane to the classic while setting the tone for the movie, a reminder that songs in this list are placed in direct relevance to films.

 

The question is, what is a mah nà mah nà? [Piero Umiliani, The Muppets]

Most of the English lyrics are blank verse or free verse, with different meters for the verses and choruses. The Tamil lyrics have a more defined meter that carry through the verses and choruses. Tamil is an evenly stressed language, which make it easier to maintain a rhythm, whereas English has syllabic and sentence stress making rhythm much more difficult; remember the sing-song way we read English poems? And that is all I am going to say about the technicality of it!

 

Remember to let her into your heart / Then you can start to make it better (The Beatles)

On the whole, I prefer the English lyrics to the Tamil ones on these lists. And it is not because I am an English teacher or an anglophile. It is just that they are more ... lyrical and have a greater variety and more subtle use of poetic devices. All of these 20 were meant to sung, not recited, I get that. But the English lyricists seem to have a greater value for their ideas and images in their lyrics. The Tamil ones were written for the music, the lyrics were expected to be easily set to tunes. So they use poetic devices that slide easily into tunes but don’t employ the ‘more is less’ philosophy. Which isn’t to say that Tamil film songs don’t have brilliant lyrics, just not all the ones in this list, which doesn’t include Kannadasan.