The story of “Maa Langatama” song
I truly believe that “Maa Langatama” song is timeless. So it seemed not easy to do a re-production without being guilty about ending up with a lesser-quality remake.
My goal was to create a rendition that cannot be directly compared to the original song but still can be related to, in many ways.
The concept
I presented my thoughts about the concept to a group of creators who I closely work with — the Pomegranate Team. Their task was to come up with a concept for a video and later carry out the video production too.
Due to constraints arose from the global Coronavirus pandemic, we switched to a lyrical video.
From multiple rounds of ideation, we picked the following synopsis to go ahead with the song:
Inspired by the sleeping beauty story, a man realises he is not her true love, he cannot wake her up, her destiny is someone else. but still, he dedicates his life to protect her, waiting for her to wakeup.
මම ඔබ ගැනම සිහින මැවූයෙමි මගේ ළඟටම තව ලං කරගන්නට, නළ මුදු සුවඳ විඳින්නට, අපේම අනාගතයක් ලියන්නට සඳක් සේ මම අදත් බලා ඉන්නෙමි. ඒත් අවදි වන සේයාවක් වත් නැතිව ඇය තවමත් නින්දෙහිය. ඔව්, නිදන කුමරිය වුවත් අවදි වූයේ එක්වර මතුවූ කුමාරයකු නිසා මිස, කල්ප කාල යුග ලඟ රැදෙමින් බලා හුන් කුරුමිට්ටකු නිසා නොවන වග මා පසක් කර ගත යුතු ව ඇත.
It was like a different (a bit darker) version of the sleeping beauty story, perfectly blended with the new rendition of the song.
The musical arrangement
Thisal Randunu, a multi-talented singer-songwriter cum guitarist who was assigned the hard job of doing the new music arrangement of Maa Langatama song. With a few rounds of trials, we locked on to the mood and the feel of the song. The rest is history.
The perfect combination of guitars, piano, and percussions gave a fresh, happy, but also a mystic feels to the song.
The mix
The audio was mixed by Thilina Boraless @ Amusync Studios adding his unique color to the song, which I think elevates it to a different level.
The singing
“I must always do something new”, I was saying to myself throughout the voice recording of the song. I tried to keep the vocal emotions as calm as possible at the beginning of the song, but expand and extend as the song unfolds.
I also avoided copying the singing style of the original song, even though that was the easiest and the safest thing to do. Rather than choosing complex improvisations that my father used in many places of the song, I tried to keep it cleaner mostly, but use a sweet improvisation towards the end of the song.
The result
The song was received well among fans. The comments were overwhelmingly positive. I must thank my parents, W D Ariyasinghe & Darshani Chandrasena, the original songwriters, Thisal Randunu, Thilina Boralessa, and the parties who ware involved in clearing the necessary licenses for the remake.
The original story of Maa Langatama by W D Ariyasinghe
“Why don’t you sing Maa Langatama song?”. That’s what my father, W D Ariyasinghe, a legendary singer, said to me about 2 years ago. It was 14 years since the original song was released, and it has naturally become a mega-hit in Sri Lanka as it is still being played regularly on mainstream Radio and TV.
W D Ariyasinghe was one of the most technically accurate singers I have seen ever to date. Back in the day, his singing did influence not only fans but also other singers who claimed that they wanted to learn from his singing.
The legendary hit
Maa Langatama (Sinhala: මා ළඟටම) is undoubtedly one of the most popular Sinhala pop songs that were created in the year 2004. It was for the latest song album of W. D. Ariyasinghe, called Sanda Nagena Thuru (Sinhala: සඳ නැගෙනා තුරු) in the year 2004.
The Melody
The melody was composed by Thissasiri Perera, who was regarded as one of the key figures of any professional song recording happened in Sri Lanka, in the 90s. He created the melodies of other mega-hit songs such as — Iri Thalunu Wala Udu Wiyan Yatin and Nupurudu Oba Dutu songs
“Thissasiri Perera was terrific with chord progressions and music theory that enriched a lot of Sri Lankan music at the time.”
The Lyrics
Dr. Ajantha Ranasinghe was not only a lyricist but also an award-winning journalist and author.
He penned the lyrics of Maa Langatama Thawa Lanwela (Sinhala: මා ළඟටම තව ලංවෙලා), surprisingly, on the melody that Thissasiri Perera had already completed.
It is always undoubtedly challenging to write lyrics for an already composed melody, due to several factors.
The lyrical meaning of the song is tangled on a romantic expression between a man and a woman who is in sleep. The man expresses his deep feelings about her and what he wishes from life with her. I feel that Dr. Ranasinghe has kept the concept of the song open-ended so that the listeners can create their own story.
This is for you…
About the author
Harshadewa is an established singer-songwriter, who was born to a family of musicians. While his father, W. D. Ariyasinghe, is a renowned singer, his mother, Darshani Chandrasena, is also a celebrated musician, teacher, and a producer who has contributed to much to Harshadewa’s music background and education. Above all, his maternal grandfather Maestro R. A. Chandrasena was an iconic composer from the 40s to the 80s.
