A tribute to old Hindi film music. Songs of the 30s through the 60s.

Miscellaneous

Ek bangala bane nyara

July 17, 2019

Having a shelter over one’s head is one of the basic needs of humans. Having one’s own house used to be the lifetime’s dream. It happened only once at the time of retirement when one pooled in all the savings to make this investment. But this meant buying sand, cement, steel, stone-chips, cables, tiles, bathroom, […]

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Songs of Yore completes nine years

June 7, 2019

After about the fifth year, I have been approaching each anniversary of the Songs of Yore with some apprehension whether it has been able to hold the readers’ interest and maintain quality. As I look back on the ninth year completing today, I am quite satisfied, and a great deal of the credit goes to […]

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Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 3

May 26, 2019

Guest article by Shalan Lal (After the earlier two articles covering the 1930s and 1940s, Shalan Lal concludes her three-part thesis on chorus songs with the Golden Decade of the 1950s. As we have come to expect from her, these articles do not merely present the representative songs of the period, but also take us […]

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Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 2

May 14, 2019

Guest article by Shalan Lal (In the first part of her three-part dissertation on chorus songs in the films of yore, Shalan Lal covered the first decade of the 1930s, dominated by three major studios: The New Theatres of Calcutta, Bombay Talkies of Bombay and Prabhat Film Company of Poona. This was published on 2 […]

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Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 1

May 2, 2019

Guest article by Shalan Lal (Readers are aware, when Shalan Lal writes on a topic she writes a research paper as if for an academic seminar, even if it is for a blog like ‘Songs of Yore’. She does a similar comprehensive work to discuss the chorus songs of the films of yore. This is […]

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व्याकरण, उच्चारण और उत्पीड़न

April 22, 2019

Phonetic and grammatical violence in songs Once Raja Bhoj went around his kingdom to see for himself the condition of his subjects. Seeing a frail woodcutter burdened by the weight of the log on his head, the king asked him solicitously, “किम्‌ ते बाधति भारम्‌?” Does the weight hurt you? The anguished woodcutter replied somewhat […]

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The Unified Theory of Fools

April 1, 2019

Wishing the readers a very Happy April Fools’ Day When I wrote a sincere article, doing a comprehensive review of the songs of 1947 on the 1st April last year, Canasya commented, “you have fooled us”, because he was expecting something else appropriate to the occasion. N Venkataraman echoed the sentiments. By now, the readers […]

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Barahmasa in film songs

March 21, 2019

Wishing a very Happy Holi to all the readers When the first monsoon rains quench the thirst of the parched earth, and dry rivulets, water bodies and ponds get filled with water, and green shoots emerge from dry plants and trees, and the farmers rush to the slushy fields for transplantation, it’s a time for […]

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Romancing the Pardesi

January 26, 2019

Wishing the readers a very happy 70th Republic Day As you read this, the pardesis who had gathered at the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas (15th PBD celebrated from 21 to 23 January 2019 at Varanasi, instead of January 9, meant to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi’s return to India from South Africa), would have either returned home, or stayed […]

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Swing a song of sixpence

January 1, 2019

Swing into the New Year with guest article by Ashwin Bhandarkar (A promise made is a debt unpaid. When Ashwin Bhandarkar wrote his first guest article on 6 May 2017, titled Beena madhur madhur kachhu bol, I had indicated he would be writing more articles for SoY. Here he makes good his promise, and I […]

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