In conversation with Shalmali
SNEHA RAMESH / PRAGASH VM
Talk to us about your music video ‘ Here is beautiful ’ with the prolific Sunidhi Chauhan
I am thoroughly in love with my boyfriend and I wrote this song for him as a present which I wanted to give him on five years of us being together . It ’ s a true blue love song no mat-ter the fights and crying we have done in the past .
We never intended on releasing this song for the public but it was just a gift that I wanted to give him on 15th August .
I happened to be chatting with Sunidhi at that time . I told myself to just go ahead and ask her if she would like to sing this song which was a gift for my boyfriend . She immediately said she liked it .
She agreed and we recorded at my place . On that very day , my computer acted up and we had to record with bad latency .
Some months went by and I decided to put out an album with this song as part of the album . That is when I reinitiated my conversation with Sunidhi . She was the kindest person and agreed to be on the video as well .
It is very interesting that you are making us relive the cassette days with the name of your album . How did the idea come to you in the first place ?
As much as I ’ d love to take credit for the Side A-Side B idea , it isn ’ t originally mine . It was initially called 2X Part I and Part II .
I was on a call with my brother . He lives in the US and is 8 years older than me . He is the reason why I heard and started to sing English music . As I was telling him about the album I was working on , I mentioned how its in two parts . I took a brief pause to complete what I was saying but thanks to the lag he completed my sentence excitedly with “ Oh ! Like a Side A Side B ! Cool cool !!” I immediate-ly jumped on the idea . I decided then , thanks to him , that I ’ d call it 2X Side A and Side B .
I love how he was the reason why it ’ s called Side A and Side B . We heard Michael Jackson , Aerosmith , Phil Collins , Bryan Adams on cassettes growing up . He had to be part of this journey with me . What better than being the reason why an Album is named a certain way .
Could you talk to us about the concepts behind all the songs
2X Side A has 6 songs . I ’ ll go according to how they appear on the EP .
It was Sunny ’ s idea to have an Intro to Side A and B . So you ’ ll hear an Intro on Side B too :) He said we ’ d write that song last once we knew what the sound of the album was . So , Language ( Intro ) was the last song we wrote on the EP . It introduces the sonic space of the album . I wrote the lyric to the song over a musical bed that Sunny and Zafar created . I instinctively felt like it could have a spoken part . I felt like it made sense to write this song about why it took me so long to write my own English music . I ’ ve always felt the pressure of living up to the reputation and name that Bollywood built for me , but I never felt at home singing for films . I built a non-English audience , when all I always dreamt of doing was writing and singing my English music . So , the first song on the album is an announce-ment that says “ This is the language I choose .” The language being English .
The second track , Love You Double , is a love song . I wrote it a while back , but with the help of my teacher Sarah Brindell at Berklee College , I restructured it . She helped me give the existing lyric a better form and flow . This is the fastest I ’ ve ever written a song . I remember that day - I had fought with my boyfriend and I just grabbed my notepad and pen and ran down to the coffee shop . I wrote three pages of everything I was feeling . I came home , sat on the piano and ended up writing Love You Double . That hasn ’ t happened ever again . But I hope it does !
I wrote As Far As We Get in the lockdown . Although it sounds like a song someone would sing to a partner they weren ’ t happily in a relationship with , I wrote it addressing my audience . There are times when I get utterly annoyed with my fans . These are the times when they keep expecting me to do things they like , not approve my choices and decisions . Times like these , I feel like breaking up with them . That ’ s where this lyric came from . I wrote this one on the guitar . It took me a few days to finish this one . I was particularly pleased with myself with the lyric “ Even though your loves a number ”, “ sometimes your words bludgeon me , even your silence bothers me ” So I wanted to make sure the rest of the song lives up to it . I wrote and re-wrote this song a bunch of times .
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