All Songs Considered

Do you like music? I do. Intensely and passionately. All sorts of music. The range is unlimited. From Hindustani classical vocals to modern composers to Western classical. From old Hindi film songs to rock ‘n roll and heavy metal. I am so glad that I live in an age that I can have access to a virtually unlimited amount of music at my command. It’s magical and amazing.

I realized that music is not everyone’s cup of tea. My sincere sympathies. For the rest, I’d like to point to some music I like. This is prompted by a suggestion by my friend Anup who recently asked me to share movies and documentaries that I like. Why not, say I. Why not share music, too. So here beings a regular series.

One thing about music. It’s a language. Given time, you learn a language through repeated exposure to it. The best songs require investment in terms of time and attention.

Let’s begin with a couple of songs that I got to know through TV documentaries. I believe that the title songs of multi-part documentaries become familiar through repetition and therefore I like them. Consider the title music by Hans Zimmer for the TV documentary Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World.

Here’s the song, released 30 years ago in 1992:

The next song is from a TV series based on the 1971 novel Shroud for a Nightingale by P. D. James. The novel was adapted for a TV miniseries produced by Britian’s ITV network in 1984. This was broadcast on PBS in the US. I loved reading PD James’s novels. She was brilliant. The music composer is Richard Harvey.

It’s a melancholy tune. I admit that I do like sad songs — they say so much — and melancholy tunes.

But wait, here’s a bonus track that’s fun — The Orangutan Gang published in 1986. It’s from the electronic/new age band Shadowfax.

More to come. Be well, do good work and keep in touch.

Author: Atanu Dey

Economist. View all posts by Atanu Dey