Songs from Meera 1947

After I posted the earlier batch of songs by MSS, Mr. Hem Chandra Jain sent me two lengthy email and offered to send me the songs from the video of the 1947 film. I gratefully accepted. His emails are appened below after the songs.

emails from Mr. Hem Chandra Jain

My dear Surjit,

This time you could not remain vigilant and extra careful as you really are.[as shown by you in the case of twelfth song of veena1948 ]
Out of the 9 songs you have posted only one namely 08 [your no.]   07 Geetkosh number ‘vrindavan kunj bhavan’ is from the film another one may also be correctly posted by you namely 07 [your no] 18 Geetkosh number ‘more angna mein’.this song was never used in the film but a 10 inch 78 rpm record   was issued ---N-14404.

That is why Harmandir must have written it in the last on 18th position, leaving its beginning’ bols’ blank and without giving its full ‘bols’ he must not have found it in the production booklet and therefore unsure about its beginning bols.this I know well he has done in scores of entries and has asked us to fill in the blank space when beginning bols are confirmed.such entries have been taken by Harmandir from HMV catalogues only and it was common for HMV to write on the record a few possible popular words from the first line of the song

In that case it is a real gain for you as well as for me as I too do not have this song [if it is confirmed that it is really that song, which most likely it is]

I have the rest 17 songs from the movie sound track strictly in the order Harmandir has listed them in Geetkosh this confirms that Geetkosh list is directly from production booklet.

The rest of the seven songs you have posted are from a non film private LP of M. S. Subbulakshmi ---EALP1297--published by Gramophone Co of India Ltd much later in 1965. It was a studio-cut LP with fresh performance in which violin accompaniment was credited to V. V. Subramaniam and mridangam accompaniment to T. K. Murthy, who came much later on the music scene.   In 18-20 years since the films [Tamil and Hindi versions] the recording quality and orchestra had changed much. Obviously no credit was given to the three music directors on the LP.

You should have noticed the duration, which is more than 5 minutes in two songs and more than 4minutes in another.which was not possible on 10 inch record. More, the LP has 10 songs two of which were not in the film and were conceived much later. The blunder is that one of these two non film songs ‘hari tum haro jan ki bhir’ has been posted by you on no 04. It is not in the Geetkosh.   Is it?

On the insistence of Mahatma Gandhi MSS ‘learned and recorded this song the night of September 30th 1947 finishing at 2 a.m. and sent to Gandhi Ji by plane so that it can be played on 2nd October, his last birthday. He was shot dead after 4 months.
On the sleeve-note of the LP it is written that “hari tum haro is the favorite bhajan of mahatma gandhi”

*********************************************************************************************************************************************
Those 8 items consist of three new songs of which 78 rpm records were not issued [perhaps due to being shorter than the required three minutes] i) ''gopal he'' ii) ''jai meera prabhu girdhari'' iii) '' ganga jamuna nirmal'' .and 5 items containing beautiful background music, repetitions of song stanzas and sporadic dialogues.

Now I shall request you to hear these songs from 'The film' as well as those taken from 1965 HMV LP record simultaneously and see the several differences. Mainly--

[1] The difference of voice quality of an young MSS in her late twenties and that of a matured 50 years old one, ripe and more suited to Carnatic classical music.
[2] The interlude orchestral music with several North Indian instruments particularly melodious flute which has been profusely used [Naresh Bhattacharya was included as third music director for this---remember his DAK BANGLA47 songs of Suraiya ] The 1965 songs have only violin accompaniment.
[3] The songs themselves with difference in duration and rendering.
Notice particularly '' mane chakar rakho ji '' your posting [ at 02 ] of 1965 version which is pure and simple solo song whereas the film song [ my number 08A ] which is almost a chorus song with a male voice and a child voice distinctly heard..
Now dear Surjit, the least you could have done so far for the truth, authencity and credibility of your prestigious website was to remove the '04' bhajan ''hari tum haro jan ki bhir'' which has nothing whatsoever to do with MEERA1947,and was conceived and learned by MSS much after the release of the film, as you have known already. In fact the presence of this very bhajan in your postings drew my attention towards the private LP N0 EALP-1297.

For the remaining 6 songs namely 01 02 03 05 06 09 you may mention that though these Meera lyrics were used in the film Meera1947 the posted versions were sung & recorded by MSS for the private LP of ''MEERA BHAJANS" in 1965.

Sincerely
Hem Chandra Jain

Back to Surjit Singh's Home Page