st<\/sup> century, a new film aims to shed a bit more light upon the fabled foray. The Beatles and <\/i>I<\/i>ndia<\/i> was released in October and received middling reviews; The Guardian\u2019s reviewer noted that \u201cthere isn\u2019t really much new here,\u201d but described the film as engaging.<\/p>\nThat adjective applies to an audio companion of sorts, a 2CD set titled Songs Inspired by the Film: The Beatles and India<\/i>. The first disc features 19 tracks by nearly as many artists, covering Beatles (and post-Beatles) songs well known (\u201cBack in the USSR,\u201d \u201cNorwegian Wood,\u201d \u201cRevolution,\u201d etc.) and relatively obscure (\u201cThe Inner Light,\u201d \u201cChild of Nature,\u201d \u201cIndia, India\u201d).<\/p>\n
The results are remarkable. Applying traditional Indian instrumentation to Beatles songs isn\u2019t in and of itself a novel idea, but the way it\u2019s done here does add something new to the discussion. These songs combine sitars, tamboura, sarod and similar instruments with modern-day electronic beats and textures, and the end result is closer in some ways to \u201890s acts Kula Shaker and Cornershop. The production values are high, and the arrangements are thoughtful, often combining traditional Indian vocals with more conventionally Western approaches (as on \u201cMother Nature\u2019s Son,\u201d which features plenty of both).<\/p>\n
Some of the musical juxtapositions are odd. \u201cGimme Some Truth\u201d is nearly completely reinvented. Other songs are quite good yet seemingly have almost nothing \u201cIndian\u201d about them save for an artist credit: Rohan Rajadhyaksha\u2019s reading of \u201cEverybody\u2019s Got Something to Hide (Except for Me and My Monkey)\u201d answers the unasked question, \u201cWhat would it sound like if Lenny Kravitz covered the song?\u201d A lovely cover of the underrated \u201cI Will\u201d is a highlight of the set, but there are many other worthy cuts as well. Nikhil D\u2019Souza\u2019s dreamy version of \u201cIndia, India\u201d serves as a reminder that John Lennon sometimes left superb songs unfinished and unreleased.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear from the CD notes if any of these recordings actually figure into the soundtrack of the film itself; the \u201cinspired by\u201d tag suggests not, but having not seen the film itself (it is on streaming services), I can\u2019t say. But the package\u2019s second disc features music from the film, an original score by Benji Merrison, an Emmy-nominated composer from the UK with a lengthy and impressive list of credits.<\/p>\n
A collection of more than 20 short pieces and cues, Disc Two is as one might suspect a series of impressionistic, evocative compositions that are nice enough on their own, but were designed primarily to support the onscreen images. The orchestration is lovely, the acoustic guitar picking is endearing, and the splashes of Indian instrumental texture strike the right balance. The incidental music is likely effective, setting the mood but not getting in the way of the visual images. The main titles and end credit pieces are the most memorable. All that said, few listeners will return to the disc after an inaugural play-through, though it might work well as an aural backdrop for a dinner of Indian cuisine for those who find Ravi Shankar\u2019s LPs a bit much.<\/p>\n
Additional note: More than a bit weirdly, a Google search for details on the film turns up comparatively little beyond official promotional content. What it does<\/i> yield, however, is information about a wholly different film, The Beatles in India<\/i> (note the \u201cin\u201d in place of \u201cand\u201d) by another filmmaker with no connection to this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Much has been written about The Beatles\u2019 fateful trip to Rishikesh, India, but comparatively little in the way of official documentation of the excursion has surfaced in the ensuing 50-plus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,49,51,70,76],"tags":[278],"class_list":["post-22248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compilation","category-new-release","category-pop","category-soundtrack","category-world","tag-beatles","cat-19-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-70-id","cat-76-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22248"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22251,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22248\/revisions\/22251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Much has been written about The Beatles\u2019 fateful trip to Rishikesh, India, but comparatively little in the way of official documentation of the excursion has surfaced in the ensuing 50-plus years. We know a few things: Mia Farrow\u2019s sister inspired a song, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi may or may not have made untoward advances upon a female member of the Beatles\u2019 entourage, Mike Love had a birthday and the Beatles serenaded him in honor of the event, Ringo didn\u2019t care for the spicy food, and (most significantly) John, Paul and George were sufficiently inspired by the whole thing to write a bunch of songs, most of which surfaced on the White Album.<\/p>\n