Bhatt originally did not mean to pursue a career in music. He prepared for the security of the Indian civil service while studying sitar and violin. Around 1967 he found a Spanish Guitar left behind by a German student at his father's music school in Jaipur. Bhatt claimed it for his own and set about remodelling it. After experimenting with the instrument's structure, left and right hand techniques, various objects to produce the slide sound and strings, he modified the guitar with the addition of several drone strings and eight sympathetic strings, playing it like a Hawaiian slide guitar to get the sustained, sliding notes common to the vocal style of Indian classical music. Thus the 'mohan veena' was born, named after himself and Vina or Veena, the generic Sanskrit word for a stringed instrument. It is an instrument that appears to be a hybrid of a classical Spanish guitar and a sitar. The Mohan vina sounds somewhat like a Western slide guitar and is played with sitar mizrabs (wire picks) and a thumb pick and a polished steel rod for the slide. The combination of melody, drone, sympathetic strings and Bhatt's microtonal approach to melody, however, place it firmly in an Indian cosmos.
Although he had had established himself as a recording artist in India as early as 1970 and had toured and recorded with his guru abroad (including Shankar's ambitious Inside The Kremlin from 1989), his major international breakthrough came with the album A Meeting By The River, a collaboration with American slide guitarist Ry Cooder that would be awarded a Grammy award for Best World Music Album in 1994. Bhatt was not the first Indian to win a Grammy Award. It is for this album and other fusion and pan-cultural collaborations with Western artists like Taj Mahal, Béla Fleck and Jerry Douglas, rather than his own unique take on Indian classical music traditions that Bhatt is best known, although exposure such as an appearance on the 2004 Crossroads Guitar Festival, which was organized by Eric Clapton, does allow for this side of his playing to reach a larger audience. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2002.
He currently resides in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India, with his two sons and his wife. His elder son Salil Bhatt is a renowed Mohan Veena player, while his younger son Saurabh Bhatt is a well known music composer.
Come On In My Kitchen
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt Lyrics
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Some joker got lucky, stole her back again
You better come on in my kitchen, it's goin' to be rainin' outdoors
When a woman gets in trouble, everybody throws her down
Looking for a good friend, none can be found
And the time's comin', it's goin' to be so
You can't make the winter, babe, just try long so
In Vishwa Mohan Bhatt's song "Come on in My Kitchen," we can see that the singer is in a state of heartbreak, as he laments about losing the woman he loves to his best friend. He expresses his anger towards the situation, realizing that someone else got lucky and stole her back. The lyrics, "The woman I love, I took from my best friend, Some joker got lucky, stole her back again," show how the singer's relationship fell apart and he lost the woman he loved.
Throughout the song, the singer seems to be warning his lover that she better come to him quickly because problematic times are impending. The line, "You better come on in my kitchen, it's goin' to be rainin' outdoors," implies that life is going to be tough outside, and the only place of refuge is his kitchen. The singer seems to suggest that his love is the only thing that can save him in difficult times, and without her, he will be lost.
Overall, the lyrics of "Come on in My Kitchen" show the pain of heartbreak and the importance of love in difficult times. The singer's loss makes him realize that love is vital and that it can help in times of trouble.
Line by Line Meaning
The woman I love, I took from my best friend
I fell in love with a woman who happened to be my friend's girlfriend
Some joker got lucky, stole her back again
Someone else managed to steal her away from me
You better come on in my kitchen, it's goin' to be rainin' outdoors
You should seek shelter in my home because it's going to rain outside
When a woman gets in trouble, everybody throws her down
When a woman is in a difficult situation, people tend to abandon her
Looking for a good friend, none can be found
I am searching for a true friend, but I can't seem to find one
And the time's comin', it's goin' to be so
A difficult situation is approaching
You can't make the winter, babe, just try long so
You cannot escape difficult times, you just have to endure them
Lyrics © THE BICYCLE MUSIC COMPANY
Written by: ROBERT JOHNSON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind