A good song can give a big boost to a movie

Wordplay and music have always been Madhu Vasudevan���s creative pleasures, but he never thought of becoming a songwriter. Thanks to his friends in tinseltown who recognized his talent, the Hindi professor soon became a name to reckon with in Mollywood. The author of three books, Madhu has penned songs only for a few films, but has already bagged numerous accolades, including a State Award for the song Ottakku Paadunna Poonkuyile in Nadan.A tete-e-tete with the lyricist:
I never dreamt of writing film songs It is scriptwriter Suresh Babu who identified the lyricist in me. Mohanlal introduced me to Suresh, who is also an artist. I happened to approach him for the illustrations of my book ��� Love in Metro. Reading the book, he felt that it is quite cinematic and said I should try penning lyrics. Though I had many friends in movies, I had never thought of becoming a lyricist. Suresh persuaded me to write my first song Aaranu Njan for the film Thiruvambadi Thampan. After a while, they called me again to Guruvayoor to write two more songs for the film. The movie did not do well, so I stayed away from writing lyrics briefly. However, I couldn���t stay away for too long. The song Ottakku Paadunna, which fetched me the Kerala State Award, was born thus. It didn���t figure in the film���s discussion stages and I was asked to write only the song, Sargavedikale, first, but this track was hidden in the story to be chiselled out by me later.
Penning my experiences I always try to include a pinch of personal experiences into my songs. For instance, Sargavedikale is about an artiste who wasted his life for theatre. My own brother was a theatre aficionado and all I did was paint his life into the song���s lyrical landscape. Similarly, the track Kooduveikkan Kothikondu in Jalam is about a girl whose dreams of building a home on her own land get quashed. My wife���s experience served as an inspiration for the same. Her paternal property was seized away fraudulently by an orphanage group, crushing her dreams of building a house there. Her pain took shape as the song.
Bond with music People know me mostly as a lyricist and a professor, but I have been involved in different aspects of music for decades together. Though singing isn���t my forte, I can recognize about 150 ragas and even my sons are named after two of them! For the past 17 years, music has been my field of research too, and I have written about 150 articles on it. It���s for my book on Indian classical music that I won a Sahitya Academy Award. It���s the subject of my future works too.
A movie needs good songs Music no more has prominence in our industry, as films turn more realistic. I think it is a positive trend as a movie needs only one or two quality songs. However, filmmakers should realize that the boost a good song can give a film is immense as compared to other sources of promotion, and this potential is yet to be fully exploited in our industry.
Certain good scores go unnoticed because of lyrics, which is sad. Lyrics and melody should be like identical twins. Having said that, entrusting the lyrics to multiple writers for the same film is also not appreciable, as it often results in identical songs. I also believe that it is best to write lyrics after the score is ready, as that helps to keep the required musical mood intact. In the other process, the composer will have to fish out a tune from the rhythm pattern of the song, which might not produce the expected result.
Upcoming projects I have written lyrics for Sir CP, Reporter and Jalam. I have also written a Hindi song for an upcoming Fahadh Faasil film.