Ilaya Nila "Balu" Pozhigiraar.....

Dear SPB Fans,

This great IR song from the Tamil film "Payanangal Mudivadhillai"(1982) in fact needs no discussion at all as we all hear it frequently either on TV or in some musical concert. It has stood the test of time and is still going strong after 25 years and will probably never have a rebirth as there are no chances for it to become extinct.

However, i have taken up this song for posting in this blog based on request from one of our SPB fans "K Padmanabhan" who had taken the initiative of sending the lyrics in the SPB Fan group mail. What i will do here is to put in some quotes or info on this song which i read somewhere. This song had already featured in the Tamil Blog by Sundar and i do not want to make this a monotonous reading.

It was revealed by SPB in an interview in Asianet/Kairali/Surya TV during Aug-Sep, that Ilayanila was recorded on the 24th take to perfection.. Each time the guitarist erred, IR played the tune quite effortlessly for him..

I got the following information from a blog page of a person, who got a chance to meet the Maestro during June this year in US.

IR on him playing the Guitar for his songs - He has never played the guitar for any of his songs - including "Ilaya Nila". If there are difficult phrases he will do a demo for the guitarist. For "Ilaya Nila" apparently the guitarist, who was much senior to him in the industry, was able to reproduce only 10% of what he had shown him.

There is another story to this song

The Hindi Music Directors Kalyanji-Anandji were so fascinated by this guitar interludes that they approached our IR to use it (for the pallavi primarily) for the song in the Hindi remake of this same film. The Hindi song starts like "Neelay Neelay Ambar Par...." sung by Kishore Kumar and the film is "Kalaakar"(1983)

My own attraction towards this song can be attributed to two aspects (apart from that of our SPB singing this one), one of course is the superb guitar play and the other is the Vairamuthu's lyrics for the song especially "mugilinangal alaigiradhae mugavarigal tholaindhanavoa mugavarigal thavariyadhaal azhudhidumoa adhu mazhaiyoa" (What an imaginative interpretation of wandering clouds and the resultant rainfall)

LYRICS

ilaiya nilaa pozhigaradhae idhayam varai nanaigiradhae
ulaap poagum maegam kanaak kaanudhae vizhaakkaanudhae vaanamae

(ilaiya nilaa)

varum vazhiyil pani mazhaiyil paruva nilaa dhinam nanaiyum
mugileduththu mugam thudaiththu vidiyum varum nadai pazhagum
vaana veedhiyil maega oorvalam kaanumboadhilae aarudhal tharum
paruva magal vizhigalilae kanavu varum

(ilaiya)

mugilinangal alaigiradhae mugavarigal tholaindhanavoa
mugavarigal thavariyadhaal azhudhidumoa adhu mazhaiyoa
neela vaanilae velli oadaigal oaduginradhae enna jaadaigal
vin veliyil vidhaiththadhu yaar nava manigal
(ilaiya)

ENJOY THIS SONG ONCE AGAIN