Chicago Rock Band Clara May Get Nostalgic About Tamil Cinema In “The Last Word”
The band’s frontman and filmmaker Tom Silva pieces together Sixties cinema stars to sing for him on new single
After watching the last video from Chicago rock band Clara May, the confounding collection of moving pictures that was “American Desi,” we didn’t know whether to expect a similar collage of archive footage for their next single, “The Last Word.”
Turns out frontman and filmmaker Tom Silva has an affinity for Fifties and Sixties Tamil cinema. Silva says he went through about 40 hours of footage “to find clips that matched the tone of the vocals and music and also hinted at the meaning of the words [to the song].” Despite occasional [and unrelated] English subtitles text popping up, “The Last Word” is an melancholic alt rock tune, which juxtaposes the usually-loud Tamil song-and-dance sequences from films such as the Sixties MG Ramachandran-starrrer Mannadhi Mannan. Other Tamil yesteryear actors appearing in the video include Savitri, Padmini and Jaishankar.
Watch the video for “The Last Word” here
