Day Three: Musical Muses

Today’s Prompt: Write about the three most important songs in your life — what do they mean to you?

Today’s twist: You’ll commit to a writing practice.

---

Yet another free writing theme. Well, that is the best there is. Well, the post is to be about music. It has to be done, here’s another Harry Potter quote:

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here!”

– Albus Dumbledore

Note aside: if you’ve been around my blog for long enough, you might have noticed that I’ve rewritten this post. If you’re new here, you might notice that some of the comments talk about a different set of songs. That is true because I recently updated this post to talk about songs that could reach more people without my half-baked translations.

Well, music is magic. There’s nothing to say that goes against this. Music is something that can alter our thoughts and emotions. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been uplifted by the right music. The right music either makes me forget everything and smile. Or, can make me remember everything and cry. Way to go, music, way to go.

Number 3 on my list is a Tamil song, Naan Varuven (Changing Seasons)

This was one of the earliest songs that I remember listening to on loop. I came across this song probably around the time when I first had to make a decision about what my career would have to be. It was a time when I realised that I‌ might have to put my passion for writing (which has since evolved)‌ to the side and focus on a more secure profession. While this song is written about one person letting go of the other with the promise that they will be back, I‌ interpreted it in a way that it was me who was letting go of my passion. The particular verses are as follows.

Naan varuven / Meendum varuven / Unnai naan thodarven / Uyiraal thoduvaen

I will come / I will return / I will reach out to you / with my life

I am letting go of my passion now, but I shall come back for you and reach out to you with my life

Oru pillai ezhuthum kirukal thaan vaazhkaiya / Athil artham thedi alaivathe vetkaiya

Is life determined by the scribbles of the child / and is it a quest to search for its meaning

Do I have to define my life based on what I said I wanted as a child and spend the rest of my searching for my passion which is my life’s meaning?

Artham puriyum pothu vaazhvu maaruthu / Vaazhvu maarum pothu artham maaruthu

When you find the meaning, your life changes / and life changes along with the meaning

By the time I understand what I want to do with my life, my life would’ve changed tracks. Maybe to a point where I‌ can’t take it to where I‌ want to. And when my life changes tracks,

I may no longer be passionate about the same things. Where I come from children are expected to say that they want to grow up to be a “Doctor” or an “Engineer”. Some might go on to say “join my family’s business”. This is a non-exclusive list. I’ve mentioned only the professions that I remember hearing as a child. Because, no matter how interested or talented you were, it was just that:‌ a skill or a talent that you could pursue on the side after doing your degree in a professional area. The longer story of my life at that point of time is here.

As we grow older we start thinking, worrying, and stressing more. We give up our mental space for these adult things, like, income, taxes, career, relationships, etc. This is not even close to what we would have wanted for our adult selves as kids. And this brings me to another hard-hitting line from the song:

Oru kanavu katril mithakkuthe / Athu mithanthu kondu sirikkuthe

A dream flies away in the wind / it’s laughing as it floats away.

My childhood dreams are floating away beyond reach and laughing at me trying to hold on to them.

---

While this song talks about a time when I‌ was wondering what could have been, the next song is a lot about the present. It’s in English, and is called Creative Types. It follows a set of characters who have an interest in the creative arts, and what they are going through in their respective careers. It’s a bittersweet story of each of them going through their personal struggles.

That’s the bitter half of the bittersweet. The sweet part is that they find each other and provide consolation to each other in ways that one doesn’t think of. It gave me the feeling that even if you feel you’re down, you can always provide something to help out someone else – and what goes around comes around. Do give it a watch.

---

The last two songs cover the creative and emotional spectrums. The third piece of music is geared more towards the everyday music that I listen to: orchestral movie soundtracks. Hans Zimmer comes to mind immediately when I‌ thought of this genre. It’s great because I can let it run in the background while I‌ write or work which helps with two things. I can use it as a great filter to drown out other distracting noises. Additionally, because it’s purely music and has almost no lyrics, it doesn’t distract me either. Depending on the urgency of my work I usually resort to two specific soundtracks.

When I have something to finish urgently, it’s “No time for caution”,

or “S.T.A.Y.”‌ when I need to calm down and focus.

I’ve picked songs that are meant to be heard by people speaking all languages – which is me ambitiously believing that my blog will be read across countries. The one regional song that I did pick was in Tamil, and I’m not sure how well I managed to translate it and still managed to preserve the feelings associated with it. I actually wanted to mention a few other songs, but they will most likely be lost in translation. Hopefully, these songs will still make sense even if you don’t know the language. Fingers crossed for a time when the blog does grow to such a scale 🙂