Music is universal without any boundary; it influences people emotionally and physically in various ways. It helps the cognitive development of infants and children, it helps provide self-expression. Musical education has been shown to help improve intellectual development and ability. Numerous studies have been conducted to show that individual personality can have an effect on musical preference. These studies are concluded mostly using meta-analytics (the statistical procedure for combining data from multiple studies) they have shown that personality in itself explains little discrepancy in music preferences. These studies are not limited to Western or American culture, as they have been conducted with significant results in countries all over the world, including Japan, Germany, and Spain. We play a song, listen it, start over, listen and repeat: there are some songs you can listen to over and over again. Why? There are no perfect answers, but we all know that some musical pieces make us feel explicit, there are gushing feelings coming up which take us to a higher plane, it elicits certain memories that transport us back in time, it gushes back some nostalgia. And sometimes, a song is just plain catchy. Some songs remain immortal because of their catchy tunes or catchy lyrics. Some songs have remained immortal despite their age. The fact is that certain songs are part of our identity. I never feel satisfied listening to few songs; one of them is this song ‘Mera man tera pyasa….’ I can’t listen to it just once; I play this song again and again. This is a magical number to me; the lyrics are amazingly penned by Neeraj, melody is awesome and Mohammed Rafi touches the heart. I listen to it whenever I feel low.

Certain songs resonate with us; Kenneth Aigen, an associate professor in music therapy at New York University says that “Music is the way that we create our personal identity, its part of our identity construction. Some people say you are what you eat. In a lot of ways, you are what you play or you are what you listen to.” Aigen explained that a song’s lyrics, its orchestra, beats and other characteristics can personify different feelings and attitudes that develop our sense of identity. He further said that each time we re-experience our favorite music, we’re sort of reinforcing our sense of who we are, where we belong, what we value. This is a profound truth.

Certain songs can connect us to a time in our past because they carry a certain sentiment; for example, let’s say you liked a song at your age of twelve for it gave you adrenalin boost to study and score highest marks, and you achieved it, whenever you listen to a song, that feeling of that period in your life comes back intact. The sound is abstract enough to go directly to the part of your brain that governs the feeling.

My favorite genre in music is romantic classical music, because the singers express their feelings. The songs consist of rich lyrics. I hold Mohammed Rafisab in high esteem, for me, he is not less than ‘God’ when it comes to Hindi film songs. I love Mohammed Rafi’s few songs, because they are so classy, and I feel very nostalgic listening to them. In my opinion, in certain movies for songs when he lent his voice, even ordinary lyricists came across as poets because of his divine voice. He gave an identity to their work. He boosted the image of average actors. Rafi’s singing added to the success of many films.  I give here below some very classy songs of Rafisab:

Baar baar dekho, Movie Chaina Town (1962)
Singer: Mohammed Rafi, Lyricist: Majrooh Sultanpuri, Music Director: Ravi

Pukarata chala hoon mein, Movie: Mere Sanam (1965)
Singer: Mohammed Rafi, Lyricist: Mahrooh Sultanpuri, Music Director: O.P.Nayyar

Ek haseen sham ko dil mera
Movie: Dulhan ek raat ki (1966) Singer: Mohammed Rafi
Lyricist: Raja Mehadi Ali Khan, Music Director: Madan Mohan

Chale the saath milkar
Movie: Haseena maan jayegi (1968) Singer: Mohammed Rafi
Lyricist:  Akhtar Romani, Music Director: Kalyanji-Ananadji

Mera man tera pyasa, Movie: Gambler (1971)
Singer: Mohammed Rafi, Lyricist: Neeraj, Music Director: S.D.Burman