Bangladeshi Movie Song Mp3
Lorri Dent
"Bangla Desh" is a song by English musician George Harrison. It was released as a non-album single in July 1971, to raise awareness for the millions of refugees from the country Bangladesh, formerly known as East Pakistan, following the 1970 Bhola cyclone and the outbreak of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Harrison's inspiration for the song came from his friend Ravi Shankar, an Indian-Bengali musician, who approached Harrison for help in trying to alleviate the suffering. "Bangla Desh" has been described as "one of the most cogent social statements in music history"[1] and helped gain international support for Bangladeshi independence by establishing the name of the fledgling nation around the world. In 2005, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan identified the song's success in personalising the Bangladesh crisis, through its emotive description of Shankar's request for help.
"Bangla Desh" appeared at the height of Harrison's popularity as a solo artist, following the break-up of the Beatles and the acclaim afforded his 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass. It was pop music's first charity single, and its release took place three days before the Harrison-sponsored Concert for Bangladesh shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. The single became a top ten hit in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, and peaked at number 23 on America's Billboard Hot 100. The recording was co-produced by Phil Spector and features contributions from Leon Russell, Jim Horn, Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner. The Los Angeles session for the song marked the start of two enduring musical associations in Harrison's solo career, with Keltner and Horn.
By the spring of 1971, George Harrison had established himself as the most successful ex-Beatle during the former band members' first year as solo artists;[3][4][5][6] in the words of biographer Elliot Huntley, he "couldn't have got any more popular in the eyes of the public".[7] Just as importantly, writes Peter Lavezzoli, author of The Dawn of Indian Music in the West, Harrison had "amassed such good will in the music community" during that time.[1] Rather than looking to immediately follow up his All Things Must Pass triple album,[8] he had spent the months since recording ended in October 1970 repaying favours to the friends and musicians who had helped make the album such a success.[9][10] These included co-producer Phil Spector, whose wife, Ronnie Spector, Harrison supplied with songs for a proposed solo album on Apple Records;[11] Ringo Starr, whose "It Don't Come Easy" single he produced and prepared for release, following the original session for the song in March 1970;[12] Bobby Whitlock, singer and keyboard player with the short-lived Derek and the Dominos, whose eponymous debut solo album featured Harrison and Eric Clapton on guitar;[9] and former Spooky Tooth pianist Gary Wright, whose Footprint album (1971) Harrison also guested on, along with All Things Must Pass orchestrator John Barham.[13][14]
Another project was a documentary on the life and music of Ravi Shankar, Howard Worth's Raga (1971), for which Harrison had stepped in at the last minute to provide funding[15] and distribution through Apple Films.[16][17] With Harrison also serving as record producer for the accompanying soundtrack album, work began with Shankar in Los Angeles during April 1971 and resumed in late June,[18][19] following Harrison-produced sessions in London for the band Badfinger.[20]
A Bengali by birth, Shankar had already brought the growing humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh to Harrison's attention, while staying at the ex-Beatle's house, Friar Park, earlier in the year.[21] The state formerly known as East Pakistan (and before that, East Bengal) had suffered an estimated 300,000 casualties when the Bhola cyclone hit its shores on 12 November 1970, and the indifference shown by the ruling government in West Pakistan, particularly by President Yahya Khan, was just one reason the Bengali national movement sought independence on 25 March 1971.[18] This declaration resulted in an immediate military crackdown by Khan's troops, and three days later the Bangladesh Liberation War began.[22][23] By 13 June, details of the systematic massacre of citizens were beginning to emerge internationally via the publication in London's Sunday Times of an article by Anthony Mascarenhas.[24] Along with the torrential rains and intensive flooding that were threatening the passage of millions of refugees into north-eastern India,[25] this news galvanised Shankar into approaching Harrison for help in trying to alleviate the suffering.[26] "I was in a very sad mood, having read all this news," Shankar later told Rolling Stone magazine, "and I said, 'George, this is the situation, I know it doesn't concern you, I know you can't possibly identify.' But while I talked to George he was very deeply moved ... and he said, 'Yes, I think I'll be able to do something.'"[22]
As a result, Harrison committed to staging the Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, New York, on Sunday, 1 August.[15][27] Six weeks of frantic activity ensued as Harrison flew between New York, Los Angeles and London,[15] making preparations and recruiting other musicians to join him and Shankar for the shows.[28][29] While conceding that Harrison was no "natural sloganeer" in the manner of his former bandmate John Lennon, author Robert Rodriguez has written: "if any ex-Fab had the cachet with his fan base to solicit good works, it was the spiritual Beatle."[30]
I got tired of people saying "But what can I do?" Also, the reluctance of the press to report the full details created the need to bring attention to it. So the song "Bangla Desh" was written specifically to get attention to the war prior to the concert.[31]
As with the concerts, Harrison made a point of steering clear of the politics behind the problem, his lyrics focusing instead on the human perspective.[38] At the suggestion of Leon Russell, who had participated in the recent Ronnie Spector and Badfinger sessions, Harrison began the song with a verse outlining his own introduction to the Bangladesh crisis:[31]
My friend came to me with sadness in his eyes
Told me that he wanted help before his country dies
Although I couldn't feel the pain, I knew I had to try
Now I'm asking all of you to help us save some lives.
The final verse-chorus, which includes the lines "Now, it may seem so far from where we all are / It's something we can't reject", reflects a point that former US Fund for UNICEF president Charles Lyons later identified as a perennial obstacle when addressing global issues of poverty: that the problems appear to be too big and too distant for individuals to be able to solve.[42] Author Ian Inglis comments that the line "Now won't you give some bread to get the starving fed" contains a "clever pun", whereby the word "bread" is used to refer to both money and food.[43]
"Bangla Desh" marked the first occasion that Harrison worked with Horn, who would go on to become a regular collaborator.[45][nb 2] Already a veteran of the LA music scene by 1971, Horn recalls his "jaded" mindset before meeting Harrison, but describes the session as a "real turning point" in his career, "because we were doing something for a cause".[45] It was also the first time that Keltner played on a Harrison session, the two musicians having recently worked together on Lennon's Imagine album.[56][57] The "Bangla Desh" session was the beginning of a lifelong friendship, with the pair remaining "as brothers", Keltner has said, until Harrison's death in 2001.[58][59] Together with Clapton, Preston, Bob Dylan and the group Badfinger, all these musicians joined Harrison and Shankar on stage at Madison Square Garden.[3][60]
Backed by "Deep Blue",[69] the "Bangla Desh" single was issued on 28 July 1971 in the United States (as Apple 1836), with a UK release following two days later (R 5912).[61] It peaked at number 10 on Britain's national singles chart[70] and number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 in America;[71][72] the other US chart compilers, Cash Box and Record World, placed the single at number 20 and number 13, respectively.[65] "Bangla Desh" attracted sustained airplay in the days leading up to the concerts,[52][65] and lent the relief project an authentic social and political significance.[62] A Bangladeshi academic, Professor Farida Majid, would later write: "To the utter consternation of [US President] Nixon and [Secretary of State] Kissinger, George Harrison's 'Bangla Desh' hit the chart. It was a thrilling moment in the midst of all the sad news emanating from the battlefront. Even the Western journalists covering the civil war in East Pakistan were not yet using the word 'Bangladesh'."[37] The studio recording was also played at the Concert for Bangladesh shows, following Shankar's opening set, over footage of the refugees and scenes from the war.[73][74]
On release, Billboard magazine described "Bangla Desh" as "a musical appeal to help our fellow-man" that "should find immediate and heavy chart action".[82] In his contemporary review for the NME, Derek Johnson considered the song to be "[n]ot so strong melodically as 'My Sweet Lord', but still nagging and insistent", and added: "one can immediately detect the despair and pity in [Harrison's] voice as he sings of the appalling plight of the East Pakistanis ... his lyric is bound to cause some heart-searching."[51] Record World called it a "beautiful record."[83] A wave of public goodwill accompanied the single's release in 1971,[65] as was the case with the two benefit concerts,[84] the subsequent live album, and the 1972 concert film.[52][85] Simon Leng has identified genuine friendship as being key to the success of Harrison and Shankar's relief project: the friendship between the two of them that saw the ex-Beatle become involved, and the friendships Harrison had cultivated with Dylan, Clapton and Starr that ensured their participation.[86] Leng notes that the opening lyrics to "Bangla Desh" ("My friend came to me ...") could equally have applied to Harrison's efforts to enlist the reluctant Dylan and heroin-sidelined Clapton.[86]
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