STRINGS ARTICLES
October 29, 2006
Make love, not war
Since time immemorial, artistes have used their power and influence to generate awareness about events that have a major impact on people. Wars have been stopped and lives have been saved as a result of those efforts. Strings’ ‘Beirut’ video, although not entirely a piece of art, seems to be inspired by that of Sarah McLachlan’s ‘World on Fire’. It graphically depicts the impact of war, making it more real
Strings went from being the boys next door to becoming international musicians, getting worldwide acclaim and becoming Unicef Pakistan’s National Ambassadors for HIV and Aids in just over a decade.

With each successive album they released, their sound matured and their lyrics became more meaningful. Their songs had a knack for reaching out to a mass audience, and they managed to grow on all of us. 

They had people humming their tunes day in and day out, and it wasn’t long before the sound of their music became more and more familiar, even becoming easily predictable sometimes. It just might be about time they do something about that.
Their latest offering, Beirut, written by Anwar Maqsood, although primarily based on the recent bombings in Beirut, is about the implications that war has on society and its people. Bilal Maqsood comments on the song: “This song is not just about Beirut. It is about what is happening in the world around us. It’s anti-war.” He elaborates that Faisal Kapadia and he, being fathers, were concerned about the younger generation growing up in an increasingly hostile world and the need for them to be more socio-politically conscious. “We didn’t want to promote ourselves; we wanted to promote the subject,” he stresses.

When Anwar Maqsood was questioned about writing the Beirut song, he replied, “Actually Faisal forced me to write that song. He had already composed the music for it and needed the lyrics. I based it on the movies on Beirut that I used to watch when I was younger. Around the same time, I was also doing a project on Lebanon, so that also helped. The entire song took around two days to write.”

Having already written several popular Strings songs, he is expected to be the sole lyricist for their upcoming album, leading one to wonder why him? “We are comfortable working with him. He understands our concepts and our music,” replies Faisal. “Being an artiste himself, the way he writes songs tends to produce a very graphical picture of the concept we have in mind. Plus, he writes in such a way that the language isn’t difficult to understand for anyone.”
Strings’ upcoming album is due sometime during the February-March stint, right after the first Islamic month of Moharram. The status on the album is that they have already composed all of the music and are currently spending time in the studio recording it. The lyrics for most of the songs still need to be written, but they have already come up with concepts for each of their songs. There is no particular theme that dominates the album; however, they have composed some songs that touch upon socio-political issues, not unlike Beirut. One of the songs Faisal and Bilal are working on is based on terrorism, the insecurity and uncertainty that surround it. It is about a man who leaves his house, not knowing whether he will be able to return home.

Being Unicef’s ambassadors for HIV and Aids, it comes as no surprise that there is also a song on Aids currently in the making. Strings hope to launch the song on December 1st, World Aids Day.

They are currently undecided as to which label to sign up with in Pakistan, but will definitely be signing up with Sony BMG in India, and are currently touring between Nepal, the United States and Switzerland.

Since time immemorial, artistes have used their power and influence to generate awareness about events that have a major impact on people. Wars have been stopped and lives have been saved as a result of those efforts. The video of Beirut, although not entirely a piece of art, seems to be inspired by that of Sarah McLachlan’s World on Fire. It graphically depicts the impact of war, making it more real. One has to give them credit for taking the initiative to ‘talk’ about issues that are currently affecting the greater world.

With the world becoming smaller by the day, what affects a certain group of people isn’t restricted to them alone. Rather, it spreads around like fire and indirectly affects all those who are aware of what is going on. It is about time that someone from the media used their creativity to snap most of us out of the materialistically driven haze we seem to be perpetually lost in and made us sit up and take notice. We’re glad Strings are doing their little bit.