I have high regards for composer Ilaiyaraja. Of late, however, the maestro has begun to show some sort of musical sterility in his works. There is no variety or fresh approach in his music anymore. His music doesn’t move you or excite you much these days, even in his trademark melodious tunes. Perhaps this could be one reason why A R Rahman got more popular than Ilaiyaraja, because ARR kept improvising throughout his career. Also Ilaiyaraja has been recycling his old tunes for new movies. His Hindi music scores for the films like “Cheeni Kum” and “Paa” are good examples of this.
When I heard the songs from the movie Pazhassiraja, composed by Ilaiyaraja, it did not move me a bit. Ilaiyaraja’s music for this epic movie was disappointing and average. Usually the movies directed by Hariharan would have some great songs. But this one was a huge let down.
But now the composer is blaming the lyricist over one particular song from Pazhassiraja. Ilaiyaraja said that he is dissatisfied with poet ONV Kurup’s lyrics for the film and he spoke about it at the audio release of the Tamil version of the film at Chennai.
According to the music director, ONV was unable to write the lyrics for a tune that had been selected by Hariharan, from among several tunes that Ilaiyaraja had presented before him. A few months later, the director had approached Ilaiyaraja again with lyrics that had been written by the famous lyricist, and had asked him to compose a tune for the same.
Ilaiyaraja said that the lyrics had the manner of a march past anthem. It had none of the anguish experienced by the warrior. Probably the lyricist must have had a different picture of Pazhassi in his mind, he added. [via]
I think it is up to the director and script writer to decide what kind of lyrics they want for a situation in the film. In this case, it seems that both the director and script writer do not have any problem with the lyrics penned by ONV. Then why should the composer have any issues? Or is it his way of covering up his inability to come up with a good tune for the lines that ONV wrote?
PS: The song Gum Sum from the Hindi movie Paa is a tune composed by Ilaiyaraja for an old Malayalam song (Thumpee Vaa). The original Malayalam lyrics for that song was written by ONV and most of us Malayalees listen to that song equally for it’s poetic beauty.
Update: Here is another take on the songs from Pazhassiraja.