Day 8: A Song That You Know All The Words To

190511190511 Miminality2 Comments

It should be Day 7 but I’m skipping the entry because I can’t think of a very remarkable instance of A Song That Reminds You of a Certain Event. Some other day, then, while I put up the next entry.
Unfortunately, yet another song without a video. This is not the most well-known version of the song, but it is the one I memorized the lyrics from.

This is also the version I remember singing aloud with a bunch of people at G-Point, that terribly dirty and not-so-terribly secret hideout in campus that we never frequented after first year. I went to look at it again last summer and found the place turned entirely into a garbage dump. The friend who came along with me had not spent her UG1 there and could never have guessed the magic that has left that bit of desolate ruin.

Day 6: A Song That Reminds You Of Somewhere

180511190511 MiminalityLeave a comment

A song from a mixed CD made for me by a boy — oh, about three years ago. (He was a nice boy, but the last time we spoke was about three years ago as well. I keep in touch with fewer than five people at any given point to time, so the people on the periphery often fade away. When a name pops into mind all of a sudden once in a while, I’m left wondering, whoa, so what happened to this person! Like I’m wondering now.)
Another song without a video, I’m afraid. Instead there are lyrics, if that is any comfort. Although the lyrics of this song aren’t really difficult to comprehend.

I left the CD lying around for months, didn’t have time to listen until one day I uploaded all its contents into my iPod and left for a long two-months-in-two-cities a trip, because when one travels one must always have new music. It was a stuffy peninsular summer. I had just wrapped up with one city (and all it entailed), and was on a night-long bus journey through the hills and highways of the Western Ghats. I was alone and tired and burning with fever and fighting with guilt and disappointed with myself and so, so relieved. Everyone in the bus was asleep, even the constantly whimpering babies. The lights were turned out so I couldn’t see their faces, and I could permit myself the luxury of imagining that this busful of strangers weren’t there — only me. Outside my window the night was vast and dark and filled with countless stars. Never before (and never again) had I felt so small and devastated and free.

Day 5: A Song That Reminds You of Someone

160511190511 MiminalityLeave a comment

The thing is that nearly all songs remind me of someone or the other, my music collection being built almost entirely from donations and recommendations. My people/place/sound/feeling associations are usually keen, so there are hundreds of songs with bits of history attached to them. It gives me the privilege of choosing the one among them I’d prefer to archive.
So… this song that I have of late come to love. This particular Youtube video. (It’s not a real music video, I suspect the song doesn’t have one.)

Given to me exactly a month ago so I’m not sure if it qualifies as a reminder, but this song will continue to remind me of the person, the moment, the things that went through my head at that point and the little knot in my stomach — that was a memory point being created and I’m usually never incorrect about such things.

Of the little ironies of the song and the situation, I’m sure a mostly-public blog is not the best place to ponder.

Day 3 and 4: A Song That Makes You Happy/Sad

150511150511 MiminalityLeave a comment

So, yesterday I found a different entertainment and duly forgot to post. So this is for Day 3: A Song That Makes You Happy, another song that I’ve loved since forever and always wanted to put up on the blog. I adore the video too — its sunshine and grandeur and Patrick Monahan’s heartmelting smile.

Day 4: A Song That Makes You Sad calls for this one, which is an awfully potent and stomach-curdling song. The cadaverous vocals, the guitar crashes, everything go into making it just a little worse. A song to kill your joy even on the brightest day.

And this is probably going to be my favourite post in this series. :)

Day 2: Your Least Favourite Song

130511130511 Miminality4 Comments

It occurs to me that lists of least favourite songs never get populated unless one is made to endure a not-so-pleasant song against their wishes, probably for long stretches of time, probably over and over again. I’m sure I’ve heard worse songs than this but I do not remember them; I haven’t heard them long enough to despise them as long as I’ve had the faculty to change the station, channel, or walk out of the room. (Ridiculously bad songs, on the other hand, are a different league altogether — they’re cringeworthy, but everyone loves them. Tell me you don’t simply adore a hardcore Himesh masterpiece, really?!)

This song, however, had been played on loop at a Saraswati Puja pandal two houses from mine all evening and night the year the movie was released (I forget which). I don’t think my ears (and brain) ever had a more tortured time.

Not to mention that the song is equally painful visually, featuring two of the triad of Excruciatingly Bad-Looking Bollywood Heroes (the third being Govinda; I’m not going into the one-film-wonder type smalltimers) and Bipasha Basu in one of her ugliest phases. Anyway, this is one of those posts that I don’t want to expand to great lengths. Enjoy the song. :/