Rock the isolation: With everything from Amadeus to Hip-Hop

I paraphrase Shakespeare when I say Music is the food for love and the rockumentaries are there so you can touch divinity. In times such as these when you will need to take comfort in music what better than Mozart himself? And in the words of his greatest rival at that time, Salieri.

If you have not watched this fabulous Oscar winning film, now is the time to make the best use of your subscription to Netflix and watch Salieri say, ‘On the page it looked like nothing. The beginning is simple, almost comic. Just a pulse, bassoons and basset horns, like a rusty squeezebox. Then suddenly; high above it, an oboe, a single note, hanging there unwavering, till a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the very voice of God.’

This is the magical film called Amadeus. But the hero of the film is F. Murray Abraham who plays Salieri…

From the bad boy classical music let’s go to heavy metal, which is home for all the bad boys. What awesome music they make! It has shaped my childhood, showing me a side of life that perhaps belonged to eye-poppingly cool people on another planet. Because reality was taking Hindustani classical music lessons while dreaming about Stevie Nicks.

But I digress. As their name suggests, Motley Crue were a band that still seems like they were just a random act by the universe, but their music can still make your heart thud in your rib cage. Especially when you’re riding away on a motorbike doing a 103 with ‘Kickstart My Heart’. I guess we all learnt to say ‘Ohh!’ followed by ‘Yeah’ when you watched their videos as a teenager and wished you had seen them perform. That’s the song I would want the ambulance guys playing when they’re taking me to the hospital!

It’s not like there haven’t been badass guitar players elsewhere. But who could compete with Robert Johnson who suddenly became such a phenom, it is rumoured that he made a deal with the devil in order to be able to play the guitar the way he did. In fact, his guitarwork is said to usher in the era of rock. You will get goosebumps when you hear him play, and you will find your hands playing the air guitar as your mouth oohs and aahs as his fingers make an easy work of complicated tunes.

His voice was eerie and haunting, and the lyrics even today tell you the history of America as it was then. Imagine going back to a place where the Blues began. Can you hear the wind howl? Can you feel the air hanging low and heavy in the Mississippi delta and the people, the fields and church…

When you watch his thumb pluck strings in a rhythm as his left hand slides magically on the frets, you have to make sure your jaw does not hit the floor too hard. Deal with the Devil apart, I always wondered how easily sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll go together. If the rockers had not been chemically dependent would we ever hear about effervescent elephants and homeless mice? Had the families truly supported them, could Amy sing about saying no to rehab? Had the drinking been contained, would Roadhouse Blues, People Are Strange ever get written? 27 Gone Too Soon is a tribute to these brilliant singers, songwriters of our times.

TS Eliot was right, April has been a cruel month for music. Kurt Cobain was found dead on the fifth, young Avicii on the 20th. The idea of being 27 and dead makes you rethink all your complaints, and whining. These people had the talent and the money and fame and love even. But clearly that wasn’t enough.

On the other hand, there are those who are still rocking, and they are pretty fabulous. There’s a seriously good documentary about being ‘Under The Influence’ with Keith Richards showing us how he has never grown up, because he’s still learning from Muddy Waters…

I have tried to understand music today, I have really tried. It took me 4 seasons of Hip Hop Evolution to understand music that emerged from anger and passion of a different kind. Of course you have seen Gully Boy which is the story of young man Vivian Fernandes aka Divine here in Bombay. But it’s exactly like 8 Mile which was a movie based on Eminem’s life. While the Hip-Hop scene in America turned violent killing many a fabulous talent (watch Unsolved on Netflix to understand the complications of being a rap star in the US), I am glad that there are The Defiant Ones that break all rules.

There are documentaries about Madonna and the supergroup Chicago and even Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson, but what fascinated me was the rather roughly made documentary about the men behind Bollywood music. I say rough because the documentary has no flash, no path breaking narrative. Only that the mind boggles to understand how these men who were creating great music (which we all still listen to) did not think anything at all about the music, except that they did a job, and it had to be perfect because 100 musicians were performing at the same time and they had a recording to do. The still photographs are a treasure trove, and it’s a 52 minutes well spent if you love yesteryears Bollywood music. The documentary is called The Human Factor: The Untold Stories about Bombay Film Orchestras.

By now, you should be used to hearing everyone sign off: See you on the other side of this isolation. Meanwhile, Rock on!

Manisha Lakhe is a poet, film critic, traveller, founder of Caferati — an online writer’s forum, hosts Mumbai’s oldest open mic, and teaches advertising, films and communication.