golden lyrics are gone

I love music, it’s a part of my life, or may be the very blood in my vein, a day without music hardly comes to my life. But my love for music is not universal I listen to music without discrimination for the first few times, but like and repeat songs with good tune, lyrics and singer. These are life blood for a good, memorable song to me. A song does not come to life if the lyric is not good, the tune heart stirring and the singer capable of bringing life to it.

Whenever I listen to the modern songs I truly pine for the lyrics and the singers of past days. A lot of music directors expertly copy the hit and melodious songs from west, so the tune part is not bland, but the lyrics and singers are hardly comparable to the singers or lyricists of my younger days.

Where as the latest trend seems to scoop good melodies from west, then hand them over to the lyricists to prepare lyrics that fits that tune. The more meaningless a song is, the more suspicious it makes me that it’s a copy of some western tune. There is such a vast collection of western music that it is not possible to catch the thieve until you have yourself heard the song too many time, even then its not that easy to catch.

Even now when I listen to the songs of Md. Rafi or earlier artists I realize what lyrics means and how a singer can put life to a song. Those songs made us laugh and cry with them, fall in love with them, made us searching our own reflection/loved one’s reflection in them. Who will not love to sing “Chaudavee ka chand ho…” for his lover or “Ai nargise mastana..”

Its strange how artistic side of human civilization is on a downward sweep, I have stopped reading (please read repeating) Bengali literature after saradindu, English literature after Louis L’ Amour. Hindi? Well even though I know Hindi thoroughly but I don’t read Hindi literature, never did on my own, just read the text book stuff and some additional things like Munshi Premchand or magazines or novels and hated the last two categories, they are mostly insult to literature. Modern Bengali literature, I hardly repeat the stories of modern writers, but even now I read books by Bankimchandra or Saratchandra eagerly.

In field of arts we will observe the same. And music, the lesser said is better. Only field which is out of the path of this downward sweep is Hollywood. They have maintained a standard till date, and some of their works is really excellent.

I wonder if we will see the upward surge too. The upward surge of creativity after it hits the bottom.