A long time ago, I heard, quite by chance, a song by a blind opera singer that I understood not a single word of. But it made me feel things I did not understand. Google has taught me since what the song was about but it didn’t really matter. I loved it before I understood it. The song being Con Te Partiro by Andrea Bocelli. My favourite version is the Anglo-Italian version, the English part rendered by Sarah Brightman. I can listen to this song at any point in time. I never get tired of it. I still don’t fully understand all the feels it makes me feel but I love it. That has not changed.
Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore discussed the superiority between tune and words in Music & Lyrics. I don’t remember what they agreed on, but I think probably a marriage of both. A tune without the lyrics is still music, but lyrics without the tune becomes poetry. There’s still a gentle melody in poetry, though, so I’m not sure why I made the distinction.
There are a ton of Mizo songs that have used western (or otherwise) music for the words. Kan Zotlang Ram Nuam by Rokunga is also a lift of an old country (or folk?) song by Bob Willis and his Texas Playboys called Faded Love. When I visited Pi Sailovi one time I asked her about Matehawngi which was written for her, and she said she thinks they just used the tune of some western pop song but she no longer remembered what song. People do this all the time. Even Kya Kehna is a direct lift of Oh Carol. It is how we enjoy different arrangements and aside from copyright infringements and all that, I think it is nice. I don’t really think gatekeeping music is all that necessary. Art is art and art is designed to be shared. No? I don’t know.
In April this year, one woman forced me to buy at least one item from her second-hand pile. I don’t usually buy thrift these days but I purchased one T-shirt because I liked the colour and the French words in the front. In an idle moment, I Googled what the phrase meant and was pleasantly surprised to find out it was a song lyric. Quelques mots d’amour by Michel Berger, if you want to Spotify it. If you’re anything like me, you won’t regret it.
Around the same time, I also watched a lot of food reels on YouTube and Instagram. Very often they’d play this one sweet song I didn’t really know what language it even was. One day, on the comment section, I saw someone say they loved this song as well. It occurred to me then to look for this and I did and found it was called Mori no Chiisana Restaurant by Aoi Tashima. Japanese, if you couldn’t tell. Such a sweet song. I’ve been playing it on loop for ages now.
These are by no means isolated incidents or novelty experiences for me. I’ve always had a tendency to love songs I didn’t understand. When Shakira came out with Laundry Service, she had a song in it called Te Dejo Madrid. I fell in love at first listen. I never bothered to learn what it meant but I memorized the entire song from intense and continuous replays. I can still sing the entire song. I can’t sing her other Spanish songs but I love some of them all the same – like Gitana (over Gypsy), or Suerte (over Whenever, Wherever mostly) or the newest diss track BZRP Music Session #53. Aside from the ones where she does the same song in both languages, I have no idea what the lyrics mean. Especially Te Dejo Madrid. I have never even bothered Googling it. It doesn’t matter.
Sometimes they are silly. Like Aseraje by Las Ketchup. I know all the words. No idea what it means. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
Or that one Khasi song Uff Ka Jingied. The one by the four girls in formation choreograph in the café. I don’t know the ladies but what a beautiful song! I know I’m not alone in saying this because everyone in Mizoram who grew up in the 90s know “that Khasi song”. Music really does transcend languages and I know this for a fact because when I was studying in Delhi, I don’t think there was a single Naga owned laptop that did not have a Michael M Sailo song in it. Sometimes people asked me to write down lyrics for them. This was how I learnt some Mizo songs like Damlai Par by Mami Varte and of course, Pari Zun by Michael M Sailo. I think also Hmeltha Sensiar by him and SP-i.
I’ve often wondered if the true test of music is how a song is still beautiful if arranged differently or without music, in a symphony. Taylor Swift’s music has often been criticized for being stuck in a teenage angst by people who don’t bother to listen to her. If you give her music a try, it works without the lyrics too, a lot of times. Although to be honest, sometimes the words are what we feel the most, too. Even people like Shania Twain. She did a duet of Still The One with Paula Fernandes, a Brazilian singer who sang her part in Portugese. Chills. Gorgeous. Or remember the time Il Divo did Unbreak My Heart in Spanish, retitling it Regresa a Mi? Lovely.
I’m not very good at music so I don’t recognize a lot of world famous compositions. I mean, I know Beethoven’s Für Elise and Symphony No 5, or Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, mostly from movies, mostly all from Bugs Bunny, to be honest. Bizet’s Carmen especially. Looney Tunes has always been good at this. I just sort of listened to them properly after I grew up but I also always have Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig in mind whenever I listen to these pieces. Image association, possibly. Funny how the mind works. Doctor Who is very good at music, to me. One of my favourite ever piece is Clara’s Theme from somewhere in Eleven’s run. Beautiful.
I guess my takeaway in all of this is that Dumbledore was indeed right when he said music was beyond all the magic they did at Hogwarts. Beyond.
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