I still haven’t found what I am looking for

U2’s second single from their uber hit 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, is my favorite single from the band, beating the usual suspects like One, Sunday bloody Sunday, The hands that built America and A beautiful day.

For their 1988 album and movie Rattle and Hum, U2 recorded this song with a choir from Harlem called the New Voices of Freedom.

A live version of the song from Zagreb, Aug 2009

Bruce Springsteen performs with U2 during the latter's induction into the rock and roll hall of fame.

Finally, David Cook’s rendition of the song during the 2008 American Idol finale.

CSI and THE WHO?

CBS's mainstay are procedural dramas and the CSI series top the list and the listings. CSI: Las Vegas and its two off shoots CSI: New York and CSI: Miami are three of the top rated shows on network television in the US as well as in syndication in different countries around the world.

The theme songs for all the CSI shows are songs composed by the British band, THE WHO. The title song for CSI: Las Vegas is the signature hit "WHO ARE YOU"



This song was one of THE WHO's biggest hits and according to Pete Townshend, the lead guitarist of the band, the song is associated with eastern mysticism, with the words WHO ARE YOU? directed towards god.

CSI: NY ( which incidentally is my favorite) uses BABA O' RILEY as its theme ( which is my favorite WHO song). Recorded in 1971 and written by Pete Townshend as part of a science fiction rock opera called Lifehouse, which was later abandoned. The title of the song is derived from the Band's spiritual influence Meher Baba and their musical influence, Terry Riley.


THE WHO perform Baba O' Riley:




WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN is used for the theme of CSI: MIAMI ( yes, Horatio Crane and the sunglasses!!). This song, again one of their biggest hits, was written by Pete Townshend to herald the power of music and how it reflects the people. The song is about a revolution, in the first verse, there is an uprising. In the middle, the rebels overthrow those in power, but in the end, the new regime becomes just like the old one.

THE WHO performing won't get fooled again at the LIVE 8 concert in London.

Channel [V] Jammin

About 6 years ago, Channel [V] came up with this interesting concept of an album by bringing together up and coming singers of different genres to create a fusion album. The series also sparked 10 half hour episodes which chronicled the conception of the song to the final version. The singers included
Strings, Sagarika, Euphoria, Mehnaaz, Taufiq Quereshi, Pentagram ( yes Vishal and Shekar), Parikrama, Usha Uthup, Shaan, Sukhbir, KK, Suneetha Rao, Alms for Shanti, Vasundhara Das, Abbey, Ashutosh-Dhruv, Vedic Chant, Silk Route, Sanjay Maroo and Shankar Mahadevan.

I have been trying to scout some of the videos on youtube and here are some..

Euphoria and Mehnaaz, Rok sako to rok lo..

This song was a tribute to team India.



Shaan and Sukhbir, Deewana



My favorite, Pentagram and Usha Uthup, Rhythm and Blues.



Saagarika and Strings, Pal

Lukka Chuppi

Another gem of a song from AR Rahman, composed for Rang De Basanti and sung by Lata Mangeshkar and himself, sharing the microphone for the first time.

As Rakeysh Mehra puts it, the album must be listened to instead of experiencing it on the screen as each song has a story to tell, a moment that each one of us can relate to.

Aarabhi and Lord Shiva's Ornaments

The current song on my lips is vizhiyil un Vizhiyil from Kireedam (excuse moi for the regionalistic turn), this displaces Sahana and Kumaari (from Sivaji and Anniyan respectively) from the top of my favorite hum-worthy tunes.

Kumaari is a class act, Shankar Mahadevan, Harris Jayraj,Veena and the Mridangam create aural bliss. I did a little homework on this, and it turns out that this song is an amalgam of Aarabhi, Suddha Saveri and Saama raagams ( Since decoding the raaga involves a lot of intense hearing and speculations, there may be diverse opinions on this).

Aarabhi is the janya raaga of Sankarabaranam-Janya Raagas being derived from the fundamental set of 72 melkarta raagas. Aarabhi’s been around for a long time, dating back to 7th century AD.Sankarabaranam, which is considered the king of all raagams. The naatu swara saahityams, which are the ABC’s of carnatic music was composed in this raaga by Muthuswami Dikshithar.

Sankarabaranam means ornaments of Lord Shiva (Shankar-Lord Shiva and Aabaranam-Ornaments). The seven Swaras are featured in the seven ornaments of Lord Shiva

Sa-Sarpa (Snake)

Ri-Rudraksha

Ga– Ganga (The river Ganges which emerges from Lord Shiva’s head)

Ma-mriga (the tiger skin on which he sits)

Pa– Pushpa (flower)

Da-Damuru or the udukkai (Lord Shiva’s instrument)

Ni-Nisakara ( The crescent moon)

Westward ahoy, the endearing “Doe a Deer..” from the Sound of Music is based on Sankarabaranam.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

The Song:
The lion sleeps tonight was first recorded by Solomon Linda and his groups the evening birds in 1939., and eventually came to the attention of American Folk group Pete Seegers and the Weavers. Their version of the song was recorded with "Wimoweh" instead of the original chorus of " uyimbube" which means the lion is sleeping in Zulu.
Ever since the songs topped the charts and upteen covers have been made, the most notable being in the soundtrack of Disney's The Lion King.
The song actually refers to an old South African legend, about their last king, Chaka the mighty lion who did not die when the Europeans took over their country. He simply went to sleep and will wake up some day.

The Video:

In 1979, with the hiring of Dr. Ed Catmull, the graphics group division of Lucas Films corp was formed. This small company was purchased in 1986 by a certain Mr. Steve Jobs. The company then progressed to make high end computers for medical applications whichevidently not very successful. This company struck a deal with Walt Disney Pictures to produce full length animated motion pictures in 1991, the first of which was Toy Story. The rest, as they say is History.

Presenting the first complete video made by Pixar Animation studios, The Lion Sleeps Tonight..


And this one from Friends when Ross meets his Star pet monkey...

Loud and Clear

To cut a long story short, The lack of inspiration rather than the lack of time was one of the reasons why I haven't had a chance to update this space frequently. Most of my time also was spent sorting out some professional issues, which was time well spent.

After a lot of contemplation, I upgraded to the new Ipod Shuffle-not much of an upgrade, as I had a shuffle earlier as well-the 1st generation 512 MB version, which has been discontinued. My initial choices were the Creative Zen V plus, which is a solid 2GB player, with video playback and voice recording. However, once you have an ipod, it sort of serves as a benchmark for other players and I returned it back. I considered the Nano, which is a winner in its own way, but realized that my love affair with clumsiness is going to play villain here. Besides, I really dont care to see the song details, and I have my computer to watch my photos and videos.

One of the primary reasons I invested in this player, apart from the fact that I love to damage my eardrums in a slow and synchronous fashion is that it helps me a lot in my commute.Despite living in a city which boasts of one of the best mass transit systems in the world, more often than not, trains moving downtown during peak hours are limited in service. One has to put up with overcrowding, irritation and displeasure quite a bit. A lot of people make use of such opportunities to cement relationships,slurp coffee, share ringtones and making their private lives public. My music shuts me out and I am so glad. This ain't a rant but I feel that theres a time and a place for everything. The utter lack of consideration for a fellow commuter's sanity further contributes to the show. I know that I cant ask people to lower their decibel levels or tell them that I really do not care about how their "boo" can kiss for hours. All I can do, is just press play..



La Vita e Bella gente..

P.S:
I really like the new shuffle, its compact, the headphones are designed more ergonomically and the lengths reduced a bit, no more USB charging and above all..its so apple..:)

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Its Scary..

One of the sureshot symptoms of addictive joblessness is when you start listening to each and every song on your computer hard-drive. On a lazy saturday, that was precisely my plan of fruitful action. This particular song caught my ears, tinkered with my mind and made me do things I did not want to be caught doing today..retrospecting, introspecting, speculating and in general, thinking.

25 is a scary age man.A fourth of my life just whizzed by along with 16 years of schooling, 2 degrees and a year on an insipid profession. Its an eerie thought of disbelief.

So many things have happened so fast. Mom's cooking now become a thing of the past and cooking for yourself is trendsetting. Being dropped at school has transitioned to walking to college and commuting to work. I have moved from people making decisions for me to being consulted on to make decisions and eventually making decisions for myself and others. I dont know whether this wind of change is for the better or the worse. Better-because it makes you responsible.Worse-because you are responsible.

Anyways, to cut a long story short, change is growth. Sometimes, things take a while to change making us anticipative. Most of the times, change is so fleeting that it catches us short of our breath. Either way, it is upto us to make the most of what change brings.

Without further ado, may I present "100 years" by Five for Fighting.

I'm 15 for a moment
Caught in between 10 and 20
And I'm just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are
I'm 22 for a moment
She feels better than ever
And we're on fire
Making our way back from Mars

15 there's still time for you
Time to buy and time to lose
15, there's never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live

I'm 33 for a moment
Still the man, but you see I'm a they
A kid on the way
A family on my mind
I'm 45 for a moment
The sea is high
And I'm heading into a crisis
Chasing the years of my life

Half time goes by
Suddenly you're wise
Another blink of an eye
67 is gone
The sun is getting high
We're moving on...
I'm 99 for a moment
Dying for just another moment
And I'm just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are