By Let us talk about Nepalese Lok Geet (Folk Songs) for a while.
I watched and listened to songs with performing artists dancing in a village setting. Television screen showed abandoned village houses being the part of its setting. Elderly people were seen in the background. Villages have lost their youths abroad and they seem empty. Our artists are promoting the song culture through the lyrics of nostalgia. It would be best if we could also write songs about homecoming.
I have discovered new artists of Nepal during the pandemic. The lok dohori on television also took my time. We need more promotion. I can see that young artists have emerged. Some are being called on television interview show.
Artists should also be good researcher of music. I can remember Lochan Rijal, an ethnomusicology scholar from Kathmandu University. His music is an outcome of social and cultural research.
Albatross, the Nepalese band, has released new English song. The language should not be a barrier if art is to succeed and touch million hearts. For love song, I can remember “Hataarindai Bataasindai” by Sajjan Raj Vaidya. If the lyrics are poetic it touches me. Story telling through lyrics is the thing one can learn from Bob Dylan; the Nobel Prize winner of 2016.
Song writing is an art. Dylan’s song “All along the watch tower” has two characters. They are the thief and a joker. This character choice is a deviation from social norm. The character choice builds a strong parameter and subjectivity in the song. I also like the song “Blowing in the Wind” by Dylan.
We have rock and we also have blues in Nepali music scene. Band like cobweb, associated with counterculture back in the heydays have saved rock. Robin Tamang has also sustained the rock music scene. We have Mukti And Revival for blues. “Kanchi nani blues” is one of my favorite songs. I loved evergreen lyrics of beautiful melancholy of the band 1974 A.D. I grew up listening to them since class 9. They have moved me to mature thinking and they do have their own literary aesthetics. They can sound like classic and yet modern. Music quality is usually good. Sometimes, for a young heart the song of loss in love can be tragic, but it gets handled if one does not over-think. This is my experience of listening to almost all the songs of 1974 AD.
I listen to Chris Cornell almost all the time. For instrumental I go to the guitarist Buckethead. Music teaches to perceive the world without travelling. Music is feeling and thinking at the same time. I have also listened to the blues legend Albert King. Black American musicians are good with blues music. Albert King had a special way of playing his guitar and that has good effect.
Music teaches language. Learning English through music is a great thing to do. One can also go to songs of Bryan Adams which has proper use of English. Nowadays, Indie music is heard by the youngsters. Indie music is not about melancholy and loss, it is like digital music, but has a curing effect.
We can learn a lot from proper music. One has to be sure how it is benefitting you. Explicit content should get filtered. Promoting drugs through music is a bad thing to do. One should not follow bad things shown on the screen through the form of music. One can listen to David Bowie and Marilyn Manson, but it is not necessary to follow the life they lead. It is not healthy for all at every point of life. For a poet or a literature student a literary art or music can be a forte. Music is an art, let it bloom the creativity in you. Music teaches us creativity. Learning to play a piano, violin, guitar or a trumpet can be a passion. One can work as a studio artist creating new beats for rappers or one can be a music journalist. Music connects with spiritual as well as personal awakening. I was waiting for the rain to make more music last night when it stopped raining.
Bob Dylan said in an interview that he wants people to judge him from his art and not his life. This is how we should see artists.
I remember Chris Cornell saying in a song “Fell on Black Days”:
“I’ m a search light soul they say, but I can’t see it in the night.”
This line is poetic. We learn such expressions through music. Sometimes, it is all about clearing your head through lyrics and words. Music is a self discovery, whether you play an instrument or have taste in listening to music. The music that you hear should benefit you in some way. It should not develop depressing mood or dark thoughts in you. The choice is all yours.
In the song “Riders on the Storm” Jim Morrison says:
“Like a dog without a bone and actor out on lone/ Riders on the storm.” This is the use of simile. We know that Jim Morrison was also a poet. Actor on lone makes us think about the debt and loss of freedom. Before this line the lyrics says:
“Into this house, we’re born/ Into this world we’re thrown”.
This is about the real fate of humans. We may feel homely listening to this line in the song although the song is about travelers or riders on the storm. This is literary. This is how we can make meanings of the songs. The learning value is high if there is creativity in lyrics. I can also remember Eminem, I find his rap lyrics real and motivating and his delivery speed is amazing too. He also does amazing rhymes.
We should listen to more creative lyrics, or what makes us forget the pain if we want the music to heal us. The choice should not be bad or ill for us. Let us enjoy the music and respect creativity of the artists. It is again a perspective and worldview that we are learning through music. Bob Marley once said: “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
There was a cultural movement in Nepal by Ralfa. The group used music and literature to protest against the panchayat. One can find more about them in the wikipedia.
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