Lata Mangeshkar: Ten Solos, Ten Composers – Part 2

When Lata Mangeshkar passed away earlier this month, I wrote a tribute post in which I listed ten songs, all solos, that Lata had sung for ten different composers. Naturally—given Lata’s record number of songs—there were many, many songs and many composers that didn’t get covered in the list. Blog readers helpfully suggested other great songs that could have been part of the list, or which they especially liked; some wondered why I had not listed this song or that. Or why so-and-so composer had not been included.

Even when I had been compiling that post, I’d been thinking, there really ought to be a sequel to this. A post, at least, to include some of the other great music directors for whom Lata sang some exceptional songs. As well as the music directors who may not have been very famous, but who were nevertheless very talented.

Continue reading

Ten of my favourite ‘Jaa’ songs

Or, to be rather more lucid, songs that begin with the word ‘Jaa’ (‘go’).

This post sprang out of my post on ‘Aaja’ songs.  Fellow blogger and friend Ava suggested that I might want to do a post on ‘Jaajaa’ or ‘Jaao’ songs, and that started me thinking: is jaajaa a word, just the way aaja is? Or is it jaa jaa (repeated for emphasis?), and so the core word is actually only jaa? A little online discussion took place between me, Neeru and Milind, and we came to the conclusion that jaa jaa is probably poetic license, a word repeated in order to fit the beat. Which I tend to agree with.

So, the word here is jaa. And these ten songs all begin with ‘jaa’ (and I’m being strict about this; no variations, like jaaiye or jaao). What or who is being sent away differs, but the crux of the matter remains: go. Go away. All these songs, as always, are from pre-70s films that I’ve seen. And they’re in no particular order.

Jaa songs

Continue reading