Echoes of the Maestro – Song 36 – Rajathi Raja un Thanthirangal

In a recent interview (a month or two old now), Superstar Rajnikant mentioned that Illayaraja composed more superhit songs for his counterpart and friend Kamal than for him. While Rajnikant might be right, it irked me a bit. I thought I should highlight some of the superhit and hidden gems from Thalaivar’s movie albums.

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 35 – Oru Kaadhal Devathai

Saindhadamma Saaindhaadu is the 5th movie of Devaraj – Mohan and Illayaraja combo and Sivakumar played the lead in this movie as well. Oru Kaadhal Devathai stars with melodious music and then pivot to a different genre altogether.

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 34 – Aazhipalam Perukkan

This song is from one of India’s first 3D films and it came from Malayalam. If you’re a 90s kid, there is a high chance that you might have watched this film, if you haven’t then head straight to Disney+Hotstar and watch it. The movie is the product of its time so keep that in mind 🙂

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 33 – Peigala Nambadhey

Peigala Nambadhey is a unique song, especially the Preludes, and I’ll come back to that later. The plot of this story was inspired by a real-life incident involving Kamal Hassan, where his domestic help attempted to kidnap his daughters for ransom. In an interview, he mentioned that most of the movie deals with his fears. Watching this film as a child deeply affected me and changed the way I see the world. Even now, I cry when I watch the scene where Kamal tries to rescue his daughter from a brothel and pleads with everyone to leave them alone.

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 32 – Pootukkal Potaalum

I’ve been rewatching some of the old Captain Vijayakanth movies for my Podcast and man what a ride. It’s like a Tamil saying “Oru Kallula Rendu Maanga” which allows me to revisit some of my childhood favorites and use them for the Newsletter and my Podcast.

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 31 – Ithuthan

The debut film of Director R.K.Selvamani, Pulan Visaranai, was also the first film for actor Sarath Kumar. This movie is based on the real-life confessions of the criminal Auto Shankar. While some of the dialogue in the movie didn’t age well, the song was a lot of fun to listen to, especially Raja appa enjoyed singing it himself. Oh! Do watch the Video song and Kuyili’s

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 30 – Janani Janani

Despite being an atheist and not particularly spiritual, this song evokes emotions that are hard to describe. I don’t know if it’s the music, the lyrics, or Illayaraja’s voice that does it. I stumbled upon this song randomly a decade ago, and it has been one of my favorites since then

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 29 – Thaalaattu

Achchani was released in 1978 and directed by Karaikudi Narayanan and the story is based on Narayanan’s Stage play of the same name. A couple of songs are very famous in this album and I’m pretty sure you must have come across this song too. However, this is the first time I’ve listened to it.

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 28 – Anaadhai Endru

Yet another song from Sethupathi IPS. The original song lasts for 4 minutes, but in the movie, it plays for just about 2 minutes. P. Vasu initially had Sathyaraj in mind when writing this story, possibly because of their previous collaboration in the movie “Walter Vetrivel”, where Sathyaraj played the titular role