"ஆஹா" moments in music

I recently came across this quote in Chinmayi's blog:

"Though a lot of us have grown up listening to old songs, it sometimes requires some kind of an 'aha' moment for a song to come to us, in a rush and its surprising how we suddenly perceive a certain magic in it that we had previously failed to notice. "

I think that is almost perfect explanation on how we comprehend the true feel of a song at some random moment. I have had similar moments on several songs, not just the old ones but on several recent ones that I have heard multiple times. There are also instances when you hear a tamil version of popular other language song and get "wow"d about it. "முழுமதி அவளது" by Srinivas is one such song. This is the tamil version of "Jashn-E-Bahara" sung by Javed Ali in the movie Jodhaa Akbar. Outstanding melody by Srinivas.

I have also felt that when a male singer render a female version of a popular song (and vice-versa), the transformation is most often phenomenal. I don't know if the singer gets some distinct advantage in such situations or it's truly different perception of the listener or if it is combination of both.

Couple of months back I was watching Vijay Tv's "பாடும் Office" and one of the girls sang 'இசையில் தொடங்குதம்மா' from Hey Ram (Orginally sung by A Chakraburthy). I am not sure what her musical background is, but she sang so well and outclassed everyone else in that show with that performance.

This week I was watching American Idol and one of the contestant, David Cook rendered his own version of Mariah Carey's "you will always be my baby". It sounded absolutely brilliant.

My all-time favorite in this category (male singing female number) is the one from movie "கேளடி கண்மணி" and this one is not even a regular soundtrack in the album. There is this scene where SPB sings "கற்பூர பொம்மை" for his daughter and he will only sing a few lines in that scene.... truly magical!!!