Recently, I was having a discussion with one of my friends over songs. In fact, most of my jobless discussions with anyone involve songs and music. While in the middle of our chat, I got to wondering as to what makes any song forgettable or unforgettable. What all ingredients are necessary to be present in piece of music you listen for you to like it? Have you ever wondered? I am sure each one of you, whether you are a staunch lover of music or otherwise, have an all-time favorite of your own. The song which you would like to hum when you are alone or bored, the song which rejuvenates your mood, makes you feel like dancing, the song which makes you feel you are never alone. Quite tremendous to note what all a song can do to you and sometimes play with your emotions too!
Anyway, to find the answer, let us try to break the song into its ingredients.
• The tune: Most important of all. If this fails to impress us, nothing else will seem to do so!
• The lyrics: This is real culprit which plays with our emotions. If you can find a song with a lyrics resembling your current state-of-affairs even remotely close, you can be pretty sure that you will like the song (atleast as long as you stay in the same situation, if not always)
• The instruments: Sometimes even a short lead/background musical piece can make you fall in love with a song even if the rest is complete bull-shit! It can be a guitar, a piano, a flute, a sitar; can be anything. It mostly depends on personal taste! Many people like the drums, some like bass guitar, most others like guitar riffs or keyboard accompaniments.
• The vocalist: This person can meliorate or deteriorate a complete song. Frankly, too much power to be disposed to an individual! After listening to a song, if it comes to our mind that some other singer could have done more justice, that’s it! That song is out of the list of the favorites. As opposed to that, if your expression is “Feel aa gayi yaar!”, then you know there is no other better possible singing artist for the song.
• The reputation of the composer(s)/artist(s): Although biased, this is another of the deciding features in a song, the decision being whether you will or you will not like a song even before listening to it for the first time. As some may agree, we tend to presume that A.R. Rahman’s compositions are going to be neat.
• The whole package: A recipe is much more than the sum of its ingredients. Need I say more!
What makes a song unforgettable is the excellence in all fronts discussed above! Even if one of them fails to strike us in the head, the song will soon be far gone from our memory. It misses the “all-time favorites” and lands up in the “once-favorite” list. Subtle, isn’t it?
There is another aspect attached to a song, probably less important than the above-mentioned, and that is the original video of a song. There have been many such songs I became fond of only after watching their video. Whether it is the choreography, the cinematography or the just the hot babes/dudes dancing around in the video that attracts us, it depends on person-to-person. But that sure affects our likings.
To end it all, I would like to recommend some songs comprising my all-time favorites chart:
• Drops of Jupiter – Train
• Aankhon ke saagar – Fuzon
• Mora Saiyyan – Fuzon
• Jaane kya chahe mann – Movie: Pyaar ke side effects
• Aankhon se – Jal
• In dino – Movie: Life in a Metro
• Sweet child of mine – Guns n Roses
Anyway, to find the answer, let us try to break the song into its ingredients.
• The tune: Most important of all. If this fails to impress us, nothing else will seem to do so!
• The lyrics: This is real culprit which plays with our emotions. If you can find a song with a lyrics resembling your current state-of-affairs even remotely close, you can be pretty sure that you will like the song (atleast as long as you stay in the same situation, if not always)
• The instruments: Sometimes even a short lead/background musical piece can make you fall in love with a song even if the rest is complete bull-shit! It can be a guitar, a piano, a flute, a sitar; can be anything. It mostly depends on personal taste! Many people like the drums, some like bass guitar, most others like guitar riffs or keyboard accompaniments.
• The vocalist: This person can meliorate or deteriorate a complete song. Frankly, too much power to be disposed to an individual! After listening to a song, if it comes to our mind that some other singer could have done more justice, that’s it! That song is out of the list of the favorites. As opposed to that, if your expression is “Feel aa gayi yaar!”, then you know there is no other better possible singing artist for the song.
• The reputation of the composer(s)/artist(s): Although biased, this is another of the deciding features in a song, the decision being whether you will or you will not like a song even before listening to it for the first time. As some may agree, we tend to presume that A.R. Rahman’s compositions are going to be neat.
• The whole package: A recipe is much more than the sum of its ingredients. Need I say more!
What makes a song unforgettable is the excellence in all fronts discussed above! Even if one of them fails to strike us in the head, the song will soon be far gone from our memory. It misses the “all-time favorites” and lands up in the “once-favorite” list. Subtle, isn’t it?
There is another aspect attached to a song, probably less important than the above-mentioned, and that is the original video of a song. There have been many such songs I became fond of only after watching their video. Whether it is the choreography, the cinematography or the just the hot babes/dudes dancing around in the video that attracts us, it depends on person-to-person. But that sure affects our likings.
To end it all, I would like to recommend some songs comprising my all-time favorites chart:
• Drops of Jupiter – Train
• Aankhon ke saagar – Fuzon
• Mora Saiyyan – Fuzon
• Jaane kya chahe mann – Movie: Pyaar ke side effects
• Aankhon se – Jal
• In dino – Movie: Life in a Metro
• Sweet child of mine – Guns n Roses
4 comments:
what about the situation when you hear that song for the first time? or the incidents the song usually reminds you off, school farewells,th std history periods, arbit nite outs before exams, long and seemingly fulfilling discussions etc
* 7th
I tried to cover that up in THE LYRICS section. That is what I meant by current state-of-affairs. Still, I do not claim the list to be exhaustive! :)
I agree with Shruti..
for me, there is this song called " Dekho dekho jaanam hum dil apna...." from the movie Ishq, some ten years back...
Many times, it comes automatically to my lips and I start humming it...
so the situation is much more important..
moreover, the current situation in which u are will also effect the kind of song u recall..
for example...if u r quite enthusiastic...its quite probable that the song We will we will rock u , will come by itself, on ur lips...
as far as musician's reputation is concerned, I disagree with that.
For long term rememberance, musician's image doesnt play any role..I mean, u recall a song by itself, when its there in ur unconscious mind. And that thing has nothing to do with musician...its more related to incidents in ur life when u heard the song.
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