What’s Love Got To Do With It?
10 May 2014 1:08 AM IST
I’ve been doing a bit of songwriting lately. Thanks to being cooped up at home owing to a spell of sickness, I’ve had to come up with activities to keep myself busy. After watching up to 4 films a day, reading and re-reading 3 of Marquez’s novels, and painting my toenails orange (and, fingers pink), I decided I’d had enough inspiration. It was time to let my creativity out! So, the past week has been devoted to writing songs. Now, I’m no Bob Dylan or Janis Joplin obviously, but I try. Yesterday afternoon was spent laboriously penning a song in my native-tongue, Bangla. Having lived most of my life away from Bengal, my command over the language isn’t quite up to my satisfaction. So, I figured, it’d be wise to ask for my mother’s counsel, and played the song for her.
‘You’ve written about love! Again? Can’t you think of anything else?’
She was right. Everything I’d written so far had turned out to be about love and all the associated paraphernalia- longing, despair, heartbreak, hope, dreams etc. Why was I not being able to write about something else, like about friendship, camaraderie, and loyalty perhaps? Or, about the pains of growing up, of looking for a job, of losing a loved one? Or, about society, empowerment, equality, and justice? I chewed on the butt of a pen for a while, and then remembered a conversation with a nomadic musician friend. He’d said, ‘Everything is love. To hate is to love. To agitate is to love. To complain is to love. To support is to love. Love is the only thing that connects everybody.’ He was right. What is life without love? The bond I share with my family is love, the friendship is share with my best buddy is love, the relationship I share with my favorite book is love. When we give up a place in a crowded train for an elderly person, it is out of love. When our chests swell with pride on seeing the national flag flying high at the Olympics, it’s purely out of love. When we walk at the Gay Pride, it’s again love. When the country got together to seek justice for Jessica Lall, it was love. I could keep giving umpteen instances. Everything boils down to the same thing- that every act of ours is out of love, and sometimes, unfortunately, the absence of it. Without love, life, as we know it, would seek to exist. And what, I reiterate, is life without music? After all, Friedrich Nietzsche has said, ‘Without music, life would be a mistake.’
Writing music is like dancing with words; words, which are blocks of the lives we lead. There’s a bit of everything- struggle, pain, hope, disappointment, longing, friendship, dreams. And, all of it, essentially, is love. So, how can one write music and not write about love? Paul McCartney wrote about his pet sheepdog in Martha my Dear, Bruce Springsteen put us right in the Middle Eastern battlefield in Devils and Dust, Pete Seeger spoke of freedom in We Shall Overcome, James Blunt talks about a special moment with a stranger in You’re Beautiful, and Cat Stevens sings about peace and brotherhood in Peace Train. All of these songs were written out of love. And, these are only a few examples!
I’ve been working on a song that should be out soon. It’s an ode to somebody I loved. Or, at least, thought I did, but never had the courage to say it. And, then I wrote the song. Like Hans Christian Andersen said, ‘where words fail, music speaks’. Thank God! In ABBA’s words, thank you for the music!
Malini Banerjee is a snotty single child, mountain junkie, playback singer, Austen addict, hopes to soon
finish writing her debut novel, and dreams of
singing alongside Buddy Guy.
‘You’ve written about love! Again? Can’t you think of anything else?’
She was right. Everything I’d written so far had turned out to be about love and all the associated paraphernalia- longing, despair, heartbreak, hope, dreams etc. Why was I not being able to write about something else, like about friendship, camaraderie, and loyalty perhaps? Or, about the pains of growing up, of looking for a job, of losing a loved one? Or, about society, empowerment, equality, and justice? I chewed on the butt of a pen for a while, and then remembered a conversation with a nomadic musician friend. He’d said, ‘Everything is love. To hate is to love. To agitate is to love. To complain is to love. To support is to love. Love is the only thing that connects everybody.’ He was right. What is life without love? The bond I share with my family is love, the friendship is share with my best buddy is love, the relationship I share with my favorite book is love. When we give up a place in a crowded train for an elderly person, it is out of love. When our chests swell with pride on seeing the national flag flying high at the Olympics, it’s purely out of love. When we walk at the Gay Pride, it’s again love. When the country got together to seek justice for Jessica Lall, it was love. I could keep giving umpteen instances. Everything boils down to the same thing- that every act of ours is out of love, and sometimes, unfortunately, the absence of it. Without love, life, as we know it, would seek to exist. And what, I reiterate, is life without music? After all, Friedrich Nietzsche has said, ‘Without music, life would be a mistake.’
Writing music is like dancing with words; words, which are blocks of the lives we lead. There’s a bit of everything- struggle, pain, hope, disappointment, longing, friendship, dreams. And, all of it, essentially, is love. So, how can one write music and not write about love? Paul McCartney wrote about his pet sheepdog in Martha my Dear, Bruce Springsteen put us right in the Middle Eastern battlefield in Devils and Dust, Pete Seeger spoke of freedom in We Shall Overcome, James Blunt talks about a special moment with a stranger in You’re Beautiful, and Cat Stevens sings about peace and brotherhood in Peace Train. All of these songs were written out of love. And, these are only a few examples!
I’ve been working on a song that should be out soon. It’s an ode to somebody I loved. Or, at least, thought I did, but never had the courage to say it. And, then I wrote the song. Like Hans Christian Andersen said, ‘where words fail, music speaks’. Thank God! In ABBA’s words, thank you for the music!
Malini Banerjee is a snotty single child, mountain junkie, playback singer, Austen addict, hopes to soon
finish writing her debut novel, and dreams of
singing alongside Buddy Guy.
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