Category: My Songs

Etho January Maasam (cover)

This song is one of my most favorites from M Jayachandran. A very melodious number, originally sung by Karthik, I love this song for its soulful music and orchestration. I had posted an unplugged version of this song before and now here it comes with full karaoke track. This is my first recorded song after marriage which means after a gap of more than 2 months. 🙂

Dedicating this song to all those “modernists” of music who say melody sucks (the term “melody” here is not used in the musical terms, but as a substitute for soulful music) but seldom knows that even most of their musical favorites have a strong base of melody. The God of the modernists is A R Rahman, who is mostly remembered for his melodious numbers than his forgettable fast paced songs (remember Roja, Karuthamma etc). They say A R Rahman is “fresh” in orchestration, even though he has not created anything fresh than what many Indo-American fusion artistes have already done. But since film music is the popular form of music in India, Rahman continues to don the role of bringing freshness to Indian popular music scene (I respect A R Rahman for another thing – for giving proper credits to lead instrumentalists in the album cover).

I pity those modernists whose idea of “Freshness” in music is very limited. They often point to other musicians from across the globe – for example, a Sufi singer who has sung only Sufi music to his death, or a musician of a particular Genre who has never tried any other Genre than what he/she has been singing from the very beginning and they call it “fresh”. But when an Indian musician/singer does the same thing, it’s called “boring”. And their enemy #1 is K J Yesudas.

I listen to all kind of music, perhaps except death metal and appreciate each of them for it’s own good and according to my mood to hear a particular genre of music. But to call an entire society’s taste “boring”, just because they listen to Yesudas or melodious music in general? Well, Pity is the word.

Music: M Jayachandran
Lyrics: Gireesh Puthenchery
Movie: Orkkuka Vallappozhum
Singer: Karthik

Download “Etho January Maasam (cover)” MP3 file (4:09 MB)

Music video: Iniyethra Naal

Those of you who frequent to this blog have heard the song “Iniyethra Naal” in this blog before. To those who are new here, I composed this song for a short film directed by a friend. You can read more about the song by clicking this link.

The short film, titled “Aa Kathukal Parayaathirunnathu“, was previewed on February 12th at St Thomas College, Thrissur, in the presence of national award winning director Priyanandanan. You can see the song video below, which will hit the Malayalam TV channels hopefully soon. You can also download the MP3 file of this song by clicking here.

Credits:

Lyrics: Ratheesh
Music: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Singer: Divya S Menon
Orchestration: Rajith George
Cinematography & Direction: Pavithran
Short film: Aa Kathukal Parayaathirunnuathu

Mizhi Thammil (cover)

It has been a long break from singing. Not from music, because my Zune keeps singing loudly for me almost everyday. But singing has suffered ever since the series of sickness started at home 3 months ago. Now that an eventful year has passed and an even more exciting year lying ahead, I thought I would post a song before my big day. 🙂

This song is one of my favorites from the Malayalam movie “Minnaaminni koottam”, a beautiful composition by Bijibal, a promising music director in the Malayalam music industry.

Song: Mizhi Thammil
Movie: Minnaaminni koottam
Music: Bijibal
Original singers: Ranjith, Swetha
Lyrics: Anil Panachooran
Cover version by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)

Download the mp3 of Mizhi Thammil Punarunna (Size: 7.15 MB, Bitrate: 256 kbps)

128 KBPS Streaming:

256 KBPS Streaming:

Nilaa Kaaigiradhu (cover)

Here is a song after a short break. This song is one of my top favorites by the A R Rahman-Hariharan team. I also loved Harini’s version of the song. The sweetness in Harini’s voice and Hariharan’s versatility in doing manodharam make both their versions stand on its own.

This song was requested by Maneesha CM and her friend (from Ernakulam) after they heard one of my songs through Muziboo. They called me up and asked me to sing a couple of songs and this was one of them. I totally forgot about it and remembered it when I saw a YouTube link showing Hariharan singing this song.

So here is my try as an unplugged version.

Song: Nilaa Kaaigiradhu
Movie: Indira
Music: A R Rahman
Sung by: Hariharan/Harini

Download the mp3 of Nilaa Kaaigiradhu (cover)

192 kbps player:

128 kbps player:

Iniyethra Naal (original composition)

I am not an expert in music and I don’t have even the basic ideas of the raaga/classical system. However, I love to compose songs occasionally. The first time I composed a song was many years back. It was a devotional song. It happened this way – our Church choir had an A grade in those days at All India Radio, Thrissur station. We were occasionally invited to the AIR studio to record songs for Easter or Christmas days. The songs had to be original works.

Once we had an invitation to record for the Easter week. Our main composer, George chettan, was kind of busy with working for albums and he could not do all the songs. There were about 5 to 6 songs scheduled for the recording session. So he asked if anybody had any songs composed and ready to orchestrate. My friend Lindsie knew that I had composed two devotional songs and she mentioned that to him [I owe you for that, Linu! :-)]. I presented the songs before him, both which I wrote and composed. He liked the songs and agreed to orchestrate it.

The recording on that day at All India Radio, Thrissur is an unforgettable moment of my life. It was my first studio experience ever. The AIR studio used (I don’t know if they still use it) old recording techniques, so there was no studio softwares or punch-in options. If you misspell even just one word or go out of tune in one place, you would have to sing the entire song from the beginning to end. I was totally nervous (as I always am when I sing) but somehow managed to sing the songs.

I was so happy that day that I could sing my own song at AIR. I was even more happy when I listened to the song at my neighbor’s house through their radio (we did not have a radio in our house then). My heart nearly burst out when I heard the announcer saying my name and the song’s name before the song was played. I wanted to scream to the world that this is my song that you are hearing through All India Radio. The song I wrote, composed and sang [ Listen to the song here – not the original version, re-recorded many years later]. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get hold of a recorded version of the original. After many years, when I went to learn Karnatik music, I made my teacher listen to the song and he said that the song was based on Hamsadhwani. I had no idea of what raaga it was.

Now that’s a long introduction. Coming to the topic, I composed a song recently for a short film being directed by a friend’s friend. Here is the situation of the song as I learned from my friend:

The girl hasn’t met the boy yet. She has only heard so much about him. He is a revolutionary kinda person and she develops a heroic crush towards him. He is in jail. Even though they haven’t met each other yet, she begins to love him after she learns a about him from his family etc, and waits for him to return from jail. So this is not a sad song. This song is about waiting, but involves the pain of love. So I kept all of these in mind when I composed.

The song is written by Retheesh from Malappuram. I met him first at my house when he came in with the lyrics and explained the song situation. His beautiful lines inspired me to come up with the tune in a short span of time. He made several changes to the lyrics on my request. Orchestration was done by Rajith, a keyboard player who also owns a small studio in Thrissur. He has done an awesome job and made this song to what I had imagined it to be. When I requested Divya S Menon (who needs no introduction to the music blogging world) to sing the song, she happily agreed and did a wonderful job on the vocals. My thanks to all of them.

I sent this song to two of my close friends in the field of music and both of them gave me positive reviews. One said that the song fits the description very well and the other said that I should quit my job and become a full time music director. My thanks to you guys for your kind feedback. 🙂

Now, I leave the song to you guys to listen. Let me know how you like it. When the music video gets ready, I will post it here.

Song: Iniyethra Naal (Malayalam)
Lyrics: Ratheesh
Composed by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Orchestrated by: Rajith
Singer: Divya S Menon

Download the song here

Picha Vacha Naal Muthal (cover)

PuthiyaMukham

Perhaps after Kangal Irandaal, this is one song that keeps me hooked to my iPod and I never get tired of listening to it. Such a beautiful, melodious song from Deepak Dev and it seems to be the come-back of Deepak after a short interval. This song is already a huge hit across Kerala. One thing I like about the orchestration of this song is that the vocals do not get miffed in the background music. It has very minimal use of background music so that the vocals is clear when you hear it. And this one is sung by the versatile Shankar Mahadevan and the Shankar – Deepak has made this song forever hit. Here is my humble attempt in singing “Picha Vacha Naal Muthal” from Puthiya Mukham.

Sally is a long time friend of mine and also the elder sister of Jessica, whose song I published in my old blog. Sally thought this song would suit me and requested to sing it. Here is the song for you, Sal. 🙂

And many thanks to Rosh for the karaoke track. She knew I love this song and sent me the karaoke. Thanks!

Song: Picha Vacha Naal Muthal
Movie: Puthiya Mukham
Music: Deepak Dev
Original singer: Shankar Mahadevan
Sung by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Karaoke provided by: Roshni

Download MP3 of “Picha Vacha Naal Muthal” (cover) – 6.19 MB

192 kbps streaming:

128 kbps streaming:

Paala Poovithalil – Thirakkatha (cover)

Here is a song from the Malayalam movie Thirakkatha. The album marks the come back of music director Sharath to the Malayalam cinema after a break. This is a duet song and I did it myself. 🙂

Movie: Thirakkatha
Music: Sharath
Original singers: Nishad, Swetha
Covered by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)

Download MP3 of “Paala poovithalil (cover)”

Kaadhal Kavithaigal (cover)

I feel the pure bliss that only music can give when I listen to a melodious song from Ilaiyaraja. Thanks to Ramya, I got to listen to this beautiful song for the first time. This is my first duet with Ramya, who’s a good singer and got a beautiful voice.

Movie: Gopura vasalile
Music: Maestro Ilayaraja
Originally sung by: SPB, Chitra
Covered by: Ramya & Joseph Thomas (Jo)

Download “Kaadhal Kavithaigal (cover)” MP3 from here (6.94 MB)

A Song for World Music Day

jimreevesI do not need a particular day for music, because I breathe and live with music everyday. Everyday is a music day for me. Music is my best stress-buster, music is my first love, music is my best friend and music is the way I connect to God. The world music day reminds me that music has no barrier of language or region or religion. Music is universal. And I think music lovers should open themselves to listen to all kinds of music to broaden their experience of music. Because there is no such thing called bad music. It is all related to how much a person can appreciate a certain form of music and it is some artists or bands who make the music sound bad.

Fellow music blogger and a good singer himself Mr. N V Krishnan suggested that I should sing some songs by Jim Reeves. He thought that it would suit me well, after he listened to my song Let Them Sleep. He suggested a few songs and I listened to one of the songs yesterday. I loved it, particularly the lyrics, and recorded it straight away. So here is my song for the world music day, dedicated to N V K. Special thanks to George for the karaoke track.

Song: I Won’t Forget You
Original Singer: Jim Reeves
Covered by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)

Download I Won’t Forget You by Jim Reeves (3.15 MB)

Lyrics:

I know that I won’t forget you
For I’ve loved you too much for too long
Though you don’t want me now, I’ll still love you
‘Til the breath in my body is gone

That’s how it is with me and you’ll always be
The only love I ever knew
I’ll forget many things in my lifetime
But my darling I won’t forget you

Kandu Njaan – from Abhimanyu (cover)

Here is a rough recording of one of my favorite songs. I did not try to edit out the breathing noise or lip movements. Just wanted to sing it, since I love this song so much. 🙂

Song: Kandu Njaan Mizhikalil
Movie: Abhimanyu
Music: Raveendran
Original Singer: M G Sreekumar
Covered by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)

Download MP3 of Kandu Njaan from Abhimanyu (3.49 MB)


Kandu Njaan (unplugged) | Online recorder