**The setting – A small smoky bar**
The lights are turned down low. The singer moves to take her place on a stool. She picks up a mike from the floor, and smiles at the pianist on the far side of the stage. As the music comes alive and starts to fill the air, she whispers huskily into the mike, *‘This is for you my love; you’re simply beautiful, ’* and begins to sing…
*“You gotta be good to me, I’m gonna be good to you
There’s a whole lotta things you and I could do
Hey hey, Hey
Simply beautiful
Simply beautiful simply beaut. *
**BRRIINNGGG, BBBRRRRIIINNNGGGG, BRRRIIINNNGGGGGGG!**
(The song skids to a startled stop here.)
I smother a curse, reach for the jangling alarm and throw it across the room; it falls to the floor with a crash, but stubbornly refuses to be silent. I am awake and back in my reality now, and I am me, not Queen Latifah singing in a small smoky bar.
Another day’s about to begin, and there’s no time to sing anything, let alone a song for my beloved.
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5 songs I would sing for my beloved…
How romantic that sounds – makes me think of moonlit nights and love struck men serenading their women. I can’t think of any ready made images for women singing for their beloveds, other than Madhavi singing for Kovalan in Silapathikaram, and that story ended with the city of Madurai being set on fire; not good at all!
Do real men and women ever sing for the ones they love?(Karaoke after a couple of drinks doesn’t count!)
I sing – the loose tiles in my bathroom are proof of that, but I have never sung for my beloved(nothing beyond the odd verse hummed within his hearing) and I wouldn’t do it either, not unless I wanted an empty ‘beloved-slot’ in my life.
Choosing songs to sing to my beloved would have been very easy when we were both younger, smuggling love letters inside books on V.K.Menon(I swear it’s true), holding hands on a deserted beach, and making Dictaphone recordings so that we wouldn’t miss a single thing/thought/breath!
Then, I would have picked every song in every romantic song review in MS.
Now, after more years together than I can count on my fingers, raising kids who make it easy to forget that I’m not just a mom but also a ‘beloved’ and lover, after wrinkles(on body and soul) my list has songs I wouldn’t have dreamed of singing to him all those rose-spectacled years ago.
Here are 5 songs and 5 situations I would sing them in(if I could!)
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**Situation 1 – **For when he’s taken the car and driver to go to the club round the corner while I’m driving a zillion km through rush hour traffic to pick up his dry cleaning, when he can’t see that I’m tired and want a back-rub, not a blasted bickering session, and the times when he makes me want to scream with frustration, here is –
***Joy Enriquez – What do you want from me***
*What do you want from me
Everytime I see you, you’re asking me
Asking me to give you more from me
Can’t you see I’m giving you everything
I can no longer be your wonder woman
I am a human being, know that
You’ve got to respect me, know that
I am not your superwoman*
Ladies, can you identify with these words? Bring on the coffee liberally laced with laxatives, and serve it to him with a smile! Not enough emotion in the singing, but the words more than make up for it - maybe *I* should do a cover!
**Situation 2 –** For when he’s feeling low and needs somebody to just hold him and not say anything at all, for when there’s a thunder storm and he doesn’t want to admit he’s afraid, for the times he wants to know that no matter what I’m there for him, here is –
***Sade – By your side***
*You think I’d leave your side baby
you know me better than that
you think I’d leave you down when you’re down on your knees
I wouldn’t do that…
when you’re on the outside baby and you can`t get in
I will show you you’re so much better than you know
when you’re lost and you’re alone and you cant get back again
I will find you darling and I will bring you home*
This song is a Hallmark card come to life, but Sade(even if she were singing out names from a telephone directory) is always wonderful to listen to.
**Situation 3 –** For when we have fought, and I am sure I hate him, yet want assurance that he loves me and is not packing his bags in his mind, for the times we are not talking to each other, not wanting to admit to wrong or say sorry, here is –
***Il Divo – Unbreak my heart***
The lyrics(in Toni Braxton’s English version) are sick-makingly sappy- no person with a shred of self respect would say those things, so I won’t subject you to them. This version, whether you understand the words or not, is sublime in the way it expresses pain and heartbreak. Who needs words!
**Situation 4 –** For making Hyderabadi biryani for Sunday lunch and not grumbling when I make packet soup for dinner, for painting my toenails when I couldn’t reach around my too pregnant belly and do the job myself, for these and a 1000 other everyday things, here is-
***Rod Stewart – Have I told you lately***
*Have I told you lately that I love you
Have I told you there’s no one else above you
Fill my heart with gladness
Take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles that’s what you do.
You fill my life with laughter
And somehow you make it better
Ease my troubles that’s what you do*
Retire your Celine Dion cds. These husky voiced men say the same things far far better.
**Situation 5 –** For those rare occasions when we are in the same city at the same time, *and* the kids are away, here is –
***Marilyn Martin - Move closer***
:) ‘nuff sed!
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**The setting – A small city flat**
The lights are turned down low, except for a crooked Tiffany-light suspended from the ceiling. A man, a woman, and two children are sprawled on the floor putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The World Space radio plays softly in a corner, and Queen Latifah is singing…
*“And when you get right down to it
Love will get you right through to it.
Simply beautiful
Simply beautiful!”*