What a set of songs! One of my favourites is Edho oru nadhiyil ( Enna Thavam Seidhen), a gorgeous duet with P. He revelled in constantly changing musical phrases, and I think SPB wouldn’t quite have turned out to be the SPB we know if he hadn’t spent all that time with the mellisai mannar. I would argue that MSV is the greatest composer SPB sang for, because he composed for the voice, first. MSV is looking for a new voice that he can bend to his will, and SPB is that voice. Fast-forward to 1971, and you’re listening to Maadhamo aavani ( Utharavindri Ulley Vaa), and maybe the jaw drops a little at how SPB’s voice drops at Nayagan vendra naal…’ It’s a signature MSV tune-twist, of course, but you’re also probably thinking: Wow, new singer, maybe there is something to you, after all…īy the mid-70s, the not-so-new-any-more singer has totally won you over. It doesn’t sit well on either MGR or Gemini Ganesan, the leading men of those two films. You’re probably saying: Well, not bad for a new singer… SPB’s voice is so fresh, so young – if it were a face, it would have acne and the barest wisp of a moustache. Raja – and suddenly, it’s 1969, and you hear Aayiram nilave vaa ( Adimai Penn) and Iyarkai ennum ilaya kanni ( Shanti Nilayam). I can’t imagine a world without his music, which is why I’m wondering what it would be like to have been born in the 1950s. To me, SPB is the ultimate comfort listen. Maybe ice-cream is a good way to sum up SPB.
This made my producer think he should also eat ice-cream every day, because that’s clearly how greatness is achieved. I smiled as he went on: He danced so gracefully in that panju mittai song… He was so big, and yet he had so much elegance and style… Then he thought some more and recalled that every time he thought of SPB, he remembered his grandmother, who told him that “SPB eats ice cream every day and still he sings so well”. He’s a millennial, a self-confessed “not a songs guy”, and he said he knew SPB as Prabhu Deva’s father in Kadhalan. And this morning, I was talking to my video producer about this. How on earth do you write about SPB? How do you contain the vastness of his accomplishments, the vast pleasures he has brought us, in a couple of thousand words? Is it even possible for mere language to express what this man has meant to so many music lovers? All this has been on my mind for the past few days, as we kept getting news about the singer’s deteriorating condition.