Thoughts on lyrics. The words in them. How they’ve changed. And how we’ve changed.
As part of the Poetry with Prakriti festival, I was recently in conversation with Akshay Manwani, the author of Sahir Ludhianvi: The People’s Poet – and the evening ended up being about more than just the subject of the book. Among the topics that came up was the difference between poets and lyricists, the former being someone who retains his voice, his identity in the song versus the latter who essentially serves the song. It’s a thin line, an interesting one. Take Taxi Driver. The Dev Anand character – named Mangal, and called Hero by his friends – drives a cab by day and spends his evenings in a seedy bar. In a despondent fit, he breaks into the famous song Jaaye to jaayen kahaan. The thought in one of the lines goes like this: the heart is a collection of frustrations and disappointments. But look how this thought is shaped by Sahir: Maayoosiyon ka majma hai jee mein. Would a cabbie be conversant with such chaste Urdu?
My position is that it doesn’t matter. A song isn’t a place one goes looking for “realism.” Even to the extent that our films can be termed “realistic,” the song sequence is a stretch where the film slips into an Expressionistic zone. People are speaking. Suddenly, they’re caught singing. Sometimes, dancing too. If we can buy into the fact that a character who speaks in Dev Anand’s voice is now singing in Talat Mahmood’s voice, if we can accept that the cadences of speech have now segued into the cadences of rhyming verse, then surely it shouldn’t take that much of suspension of disbelief that a Bombay cabbie now sounds like Sahir Ludhianvi.
At least for me, a song is something that has to work both within the context of the film and without. And when I’m listening to Jaaye to jaayen kahaan on the radio, the song no longer belongs to Dev Anand. It belongs to me, to us. It’s now a slice of our life set to beautiful words, a beautiful tune, and sung by a beautiful voice. This “perfection,” this idealised remove from our prosaic lives, is part of why we love songs so much, why they transcend a very specific context in a very specific film and become a universal representation of a thought, an emotion, sometimes even a philosophy.
Note that I brought up the radio. Another subject of discussion was whether those of us who grew up in an era where listening to songs was an exclusive time-filling activity, like reading a book, tend to care about (and remember) lyrics more than those in their teens and twenties today, to whom a song is something that plays in the background while they do something else. Or is it just that even back then, there was always only a handful that cared about the words in a song, while most just cared about the music?
A good place to debate this point would be the “philosophical song,” whose appeal lies as much in its meaning as its music. It’s easy to see why this song situation has almost disappeared from the screen. With the increasing emphasis on quick cuts and choreography and razzle-dazzle, it’s hard to let a song simply linger on close-ups – as in Main shayar badnaam, from Namak Haram. When you listen to it, you can’t help “hearing” the words. Because the music does not overpower the lyrics. And because there is no other distraction. No one’s dancing. The camera is unobtrusive – it just keeps shifting from face to anguished face inside a squalid room. In other words, there are no dazzling location changes. By the time the philosophical song takes the shape of Tanhaee in Dil Chahta Hai, we see Aamir Khan in the midst of a sped-up world, and because the eye is constantly being bombarded with visual information, the ear is content playing second fiddle.
But this isn’t to say good lyrics (or even good poetry) isn’t being written today. This line from Arziyaan (Delhi 6): “marammat muqaddar ki kar do Maula,” an alliterative plea to God to “repair” one’s destiny, as though He were a carpenter eying a wobbly side-table. This line from Channa mereya (Ae Dil Hai Muskhil): “Dil ke sandookon mein mere achche kaam rakhna,” a farewell note that requests a friend to store one’s good deeds in the boxes of the heart, as though the organ is a chest of drawers one fills with mothballed memories. Or even this rhyme from Manwa laage in Happy New Year, where “saanware” is matched with “dil ke gaon re.”
So here are the questions. Fifty years on, will people be talking about these lyrics? If not, then is that a function of changing lifestyles and interests and attention spans, or does the film itself play a part? Do we reflexively tend to enshrine the lyrics of, say, a Guru Dutt film, simply because the film itself is enshrined as a classic? If someone not named Gulzar wrote a great set of lyrics today, would we seek the song out? Put differently, do we only look out for lyrics when the writer comes with the literary world’s equivalent of an ISI stamp? And when Gulzarian words crop up today, do we still try to find out what they mean, the way we did when we encountered “aab-o-daana” in Do deewane shehar mein, from Gharonda?
At least this last question found an answer. A young poet who was part of the audience spoke of the song Kamli from Dhoom 3, and how he got stuck at the phrase “nami daanam.” He Googled it up, found out it means “I don’t know” in Persian, and a few days later, he found he’d forgotten the meaning. That could be a subject for another day: When we are bombarded with so much new information every day, is the problem one of remembering lyrics or simply remembering anything at all?
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2016 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
P
December 14, 2016
Who is that poet?! I love Kamli! ❤
Also lovely discussion and thoughts. I think lyrics are more important than ever and people of my generation give them importance. I have seen people quote lyrics in writing on places like FB etc to describe their state of mind.
Maybe I am overly optimistic but I’ve seen it 🙂
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uniquebluerose
December 14, 2016
Its a great write up…..wish you would write one like this for Tamil lyrics also….it would surely open flood gates of discussion!!!!
I agree with you on “Channa mereya” it had me humming that particular line for long…..I fell in love with the words “Dil ke Sandook”
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Dracarys
December 14, 2016
Amitabh Bhattacharya is good too..
Vikramaditya Motwane’s Fanaa-rehashed-Lootere has good lyrics.
Ankahee is my favorite.
But I really liked the word Man-marziyaan’…heard this word for the very first time…
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brangan
December 14, 2016
uniquebluerose: Wrote this about Vairamuthu’s lyrics in particular…
And here’s a post on the “list song.”
Here’s a piece on the philosophical song:
Here’s a wee post on a K Balachander film lyric:
And here’s one on (click bait alert 🙂 ) Sex in the Cinema 😀
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Anuja Chandramouli
December 14, 2016
” When we are bombarded with so much new information every day, is the problem one of remembering lyrics or simply remembering anything at all?”
That gives me the chills it does!! But when I chewed over those dire words a bit, I realized that it may not be that bad. While everybody seems afflicted with ADHD these days, the fact remains that folks will always remember the things that they think are worth remembering.
Allow me to draw your attention to some observations made by Sherlock Holmes in a Study in Scarlet where Watson is gobsmacked that for all his smarts Holmes had been unaware that the Earth is round or some such thing and his further assertion that he plans to forget this Earth shattering revelation ASAP. Holmes then proceeds to compare human memory to an attic with limited storage space and how he is particular about stocking it only with the things that would be of use to him in his line of work. Thanks to human nature and the internet, we tend to cram a whole lot of junk into our heads with the result that we now have the absorbing capacity of a torn sieve. But that said it is also human nature to retain the things that affect them in a profound way or even mundane, commonplace things that have no business being remembered but are remembered anyway.
The same thing goes for words, even if everybody seems keen to sound the death knell for the written word. I mean even those who work with words seem to have given up hope and are writing chilling pieces on ‘The Lost Word’. I refuse to believe it. Times have changed and the bar has been set high. Wordsmiths who wish to be remembered will have to work harder to write beautiful lines charged with meaning and emotion, that are worthy of being remembered by posterity. Or else they can resort to another failsafe from the past which is tried and tested… Get smashed with a bunch of like-minded individuals and compose something nonsensical about the joys of masturbation or a good shit, which sounds an awful lot like gibberish and stake your claim to immortality when the high wears off and you find the damn thing has broken the internet.
PS: Remember Kolaveri di? I rest my case.
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pickelingart
December 14, 2016
Great article! I think lyrics wise, 90’s and 00’s decades were the worst with Sameer leading the bandwagon. However, the current Imtiaz Ali and Vikramaditya Motwane type of cinema has decent lyrics, some of which could even qualify as poetry. Irshad Kamil deserves a special mention here.
Also, in Manwa lage, ‘saawre’ was rhymed with ‘jiya ka gaon re’ (not dil ka gaon).
Also, good point about ‘Kamli’. I never paid attention to the lyrics, thinking of it as a pseudo sufi song. Sometimes the characters are so shallow in the movie, we tend to overlook the deep things they might be singing about 😀
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rothrocks
December 14, 2016
Re cabbie using chaste Urdu, even while I agree with you that a song passage need not be overly realistic, it would depend on the cabbie’s background. I don’t know about 1950s Bombay but these days many of the kaali peeli cab drivers are from Pratapgarh, UP and are often Muslims (so some Urdu is part of their daily vocab). I once had a long conversation (I mean, the traffic…) with one such cabbie about how the politicians have screwed Mumbai and its high, stark inequality. He pulled out some beautiful Urdu words/expressions; remember him saying Ki Inayat Hogi. I don’t know if he could write the lyrics for Jaye toh Jaye Kahan but he would have been able to understand it and relate to it.
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anusrini20
December 14, 2016
It made me happy to read this today morning in Metro Plus. As someone who is severely challenged when it comes to music (I can’t even hum!), lyrics to film music hold a very special place in my heart. It is exciting to discover new words and realise that beautiful lines have lodged themselves in my mind.
I had assumed ‘sandookon mein’ referred to the corners of one’s heart, so thank you for clarifying that. Finding out that it means boxes feels oddly fitting. 🙂
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Hrishi
December 14, 2016
Recently a uber cab driver in bangalore proved to be an outstanding tamil poet. Has even been published in the past. He regaled us with poem after poem… Very nuanced and subtle. So yes… I agree with your position on the cab driver. Wish I had taken a selfie and stored his contact… There is a human interest story right there.
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avik... (@avikpram)
December 14, 2016
Among the contemporaries I think Amitabh Bhatacharya deserves a special mention. Especially his ability to traverse comfortably from ‘item numbers’ such as “Character dheela…” to more poetic persuasions in Udaan and Lootera .
We also have Irshad Kamil and Varun Grover, who are excellent, but it’s Amitabh’s range what sets him apart imo. Even in a supposedly fun number like ‘Badtameez Dil…” there are interesting bits which makes you go “a-ha..” … 🙂
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Anu Warrier
December 14, 2016
Interesting, BR. I do think the quality of lyrics has fallen, but that’s also because the films we make do not call for that aesthetic anymore. Plus, the ADHD of the age, as Anuja remarks.
Madan has it right – many of the taxi drivers in Bombay do know their Urdu. I don’t know about the 50s but I do know my father, who travelled often then, used to remark on the cabbies’ affinity for poetry and literature. My first visit to Bombay when I was a child, my cousin decided he had to show me Amitabh Bachchan’s house. 🙂 So we piled into a cab and were generally talking when our cabbie butted in to add his two-penny worth. He was a Masters’ graduate, who was driving a cab because he couldn’t find other work.
I agree with you that there are people who still craft their words beautifully: Gulzar and Javed Akhtar, definitely (though I think the latter’s father was a far, far better wordsmith), but also others.
You mentioned Amitabh Bhattacharya – and I agree: Channa mereya had some really lovely word play. Swanand Kirkire is another poet/lyricist whose work I really, really like. For instance, in Aashiyaan from Barfi!, we get these gems:
Dabe dabe paao se, aaye haule haule zindagi and Khwaabon ke tinkon se chal banaaye aashiyaan
Abbas Tyrewala had some good work in Jaane Tu… ya jaane na. I still love Kahin toh… and can remember its lyrics.
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Meghnath
December 14, 2016
No chennai 28 review ??
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Vidya Murugan
December 14, 2016
Since you brought this up, I recently came heard a few comments about Gulzar butchering the lyrics of songs in hindi remakes of tamil movies. Wondering how many share that thought, and what you make of it.
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Madan
December 14, 2016
“I do think the quality of lyrics has fallen, but that’s also because the films we make do not call for that aesthetic anymore”
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Madan
December 14, 2016
” I recently came heard a few comments about Gulzar butchering the lyrics of songs in hindi remakes of tamil movies. ”
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Rahul
December 14, 2016
Dev Anand did not claim authorship of the song. We all sing\ hum songs written by others. Sometimes the singer is the author in the film, like Guru dutt in Pyaasa and then it is another matter.
I think lyrics are less popular today because they are heavily derivative of old Bollywood. Most of us do not talk like our parents did and if a lyric is closer to our speech it would be easier to remember. A shining example is Amitabh’s “Aivein Aevein lut gaya” It is a great specimen of the back and forth genre of Bollywood song in contemporary language and it is masterfully crafted. Language is not the only way to relate. We need songs that talk about our times, our politics , our issues. The poets and lyricists of yesteryear were more politically aware.
Original metaphors in Urduesque lyric are still written and appreciated. Mai pareshaan from Ishqzaade by Qausar Munir is beautifully written. Also the Maula song that you have mentioned is splendid poetry – I am quoting the prior line just to complete the metaphor
Darare darare hain maathe pe maula,
Marammat muqadaar ki kar do maula,
The lines on the forehead that are a symbol of age, worries, mistakes, weariness -whatever , are a metaphor for a torn muqaddar and the request to Maula is to make it like new again!
I do have a strong dislike for derivative crap of the likes of Aashiqui 2 , where some tired and overused rhymes like amanat , ibadat, etc are strung together to make a vehicle for Arijit Singhs voice.
Gulzaar, of course, is a gift that keeps giving. Many of his songs that appear run of the mill on the first listen invariably yield more if given time. For example I remember having a long discussion about the metaphors in Chhor aaye hum wo galiyaan from Maachis.
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Akhilan
December 14, 2016
BR, this article immediately took me back to your review of OK Kanmani’s album; where you talked about how the words were almost utilized like sounds, just like sounds made by any other instrument… Particularly in reference to Aye Sinamika (What a song…!!), where so much of the song was simply variations of that one gorgeous line: Nee ennai neengaadhae…
Personally, lyrics are of paramount importance to me, but it has absolutely no correlation with whether the movie was a classic or who the lyricist might have been… Music is just a feeling for me… If you feel the sounds, the lyrics… If you’re able to connect and relate to them in any way, that’s all there is to it really…
For instance, take this line in Alizeh from ADHM (a criminally underrated song in the album IMO…):
Mera thikana, chaahe jahaan ho,
Yaadon mein meri, ghar hai tera…
(Sigh…)
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Anamika
December 14, 2016
Continuing @Madan’s point, I just heard the Hindi version of Mental Mandhil and it sounds ridiculous. It goes “Jaanu…chal na kuch karte hai..”?!?!
I don’t understand a word in Tamil and yet the original is etched in my mind.
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avik... (@avikpram)
December 15, 2016
It will be a marathon comment thread just talking about Gulzar actually. His output is as consistent as ever, quality of films, musicians or actors notwithstanding. One of his recent gems was Sajde from Kil Dil filled with lines like
“Pehle to begaani nagari mein
Hum ko kisi ne poochha na tha
Saara sheher jab maan gaya to
Lagta hai kyoon koi rootha na tha…
Btw http://www.bollymeaning.com/ is a good website to visit to look up lyrics and their meaning. Very useful when confronted with unknown Urdu or Punjabi word.
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Santa
December 15, 2016
BR: Thank you for giving the meaning of ‘nami daanam.’ I actually remembered it from Deewangi in Om Shanti Om (Ab to hosh nami daanam, hum hai dil hai aur jaanam…), but didn’t care enough for the song to want to look up the meaning.
One recent song that had me googling up urdu words was Afghan Jalebi by Amitabh Bhattacharya (i know, my Urdu isn’t strong 🙂 ) But I really loved that song once I understood the words. Usually when urdu is employed by lyricists, it is class up the song. This was the first time that I recall it being used to sass it up.
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Harsh B.H.
December 15, 2016
If we were to take your argument that when we segue into a song, we should stop expecting realism.. then by that logic, Gulzar should have gone ahead with something like ‘Dil-e-Nadaan tujhe hua kya hai’… instead of ‘Goli Maar Bheje Mein, ki Bheja shor karta hai’ to define Bheeku’s psyche… (as he often jokes about)
Nonetheless, a very interesting piece as always…
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Harsh B.H.
December 15, 2016
But then again, it takes back to how we expect ‘more realism’ from some films.. and less from others… almost subconsciously… or perhaps depending on how the film-maker himself treats the subject..
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MANK
December 15, 2016
zihaal-e-miskeen mukon ba-ranjish from Ghulami was the first one that knocked me dead :). i had no idea what the hell it meant , neither did people around me. it took a long time to understand that it is Persian means something like not to look at wounded hearts with animosity.
As someone said , One can write a whole book about Gulzar’s unique gift for coining new words and sentences in his poetry , who can forget tinko ke nasheman
In recent times, i have found the songs in Anurag Kashyap films the most interesting. the combination of Amit trivedi and Amitabh Bhattacharya has been dynamite all the way. All the songs in Dev D or GOW. how they mix hindi and english with vernacular dialects has been simply amazing. Pardesi song from Dev D comes to mind . with terms like ‘meetha sa chada hai Bukhar’ ,’waqt ne kar dala bantadhar’,’katil aankhon pe julf ka saje hai pehra’.
Regarding your point about songs in films, yes it was common in old hindi films to show taxi drivers and hoods breaking out in to sophisticated poetry. but they were times when people were careful in keeping the truthfulness of the characters as well . Like in Mughal -e- azam, neither Dilip Kumar nor Prithviraj kapoor breaks out into songs , keeping with their royal stature, its only the courtesans and singers who do. the same case with pakeezah too,Raaj kumar recites high brow poetic lines but does not sing
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Shvetal
December 15, 2016
I had not paid a lot of attention to the title track of ADHM as I am not a fan of Arijit, but once I properly heard the song, it was the lyrics that made me listen to it repeatedly. I especially love ‘adhura hoke bhi hai ishq mera kaamil’ and ‘safar khubsurat hai manzil se bhi’. And Bulleya has fantastic lyrics too. In fact, of late, I’ve found myself humming ‘jinse mil na payi unko whatsapp kar diva’ from the break-up song whenever I check my whatsapp messages! Great job Amitabh Bhattacharya.
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Shvetal
December 15, 2016
And this song, with these lyrics, and then this picturisation! Pure brilliance. I think the picturisation actually adds to the song, just as the song adds to the narrative. I know that there are people who think the song is ‘wasted’, but I strongly disagree 🙂
Another two Amitabh Bhattacharya songs with great lyrics are ‘Gubbare’ from Ek Main Aur Ek Tu (I like auntyji too!) and ‘Punjabi Wedding Song’ from Hasee Toh Phasee.
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brangan
December 15, 2016
Harsh: Oh please. 🙂 I love the guy, but Gulzar is hardly the example for character-specific “realism.” You mean to say two middle-class Bombay types would be singing about “aab-o-daana”? Yes, maybe in Satya he stayed true to character, but there are many songs where he does his own thing.
And that is exactly my point. There is no right or wrong in this. The very fact that someone is bursting into song is itself “unrealistic”, so the lyrics can be words the fit the character or words the lyricist wants or whatever. What matters is the quality and creativity of the writing. And the fact that the dissonance (i.e. the ‘distance’ between lyric and character) isn’t TOO much.
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Rahul
December 15, 2016
The phrase nami daanam has a history of being used in hindi songs. Zubaan-e-yaar-man turki, man turki nami daanam was used in a song in Ek Musafir Ek Haseena. The aforementioned line occurs in a verse by Amir Khusrau(1253-1325), and the next line has an absolutely delicious pun.
Zabaan-e yaar-e mun Turkie, wa mun Turkie nami daanum,
Che khush boodi agar boodi zabaanash dar dahanay mun.
Meaning
My beloved speaks Turkish, and Turkish I do not know;
How I wish if her tongue would have been in my mouth
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brangan
December 15, 2016
Another type of lyric-writing that’s underrated is the hero reference, like this one from the “Pathukkulla number onnu sollu” song from Vasool Raja MBBS:
Eskimokkal naattil ada ice-u enna pudhusa
kamarajan uthatil ada kiss-u enna pudhusa
😀
Clever and funny wordplay, totally tuned into Kamal’s persona (the kissing, the fact that he acted in a movie as “kama rajan”).
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Sifter
December 15, 2016
Talking about lyrics…how apt is “Haanikaarak Bapu?’ Amitabh Bhattacharya is slowly becoming a favourite of mine…
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Siddhu Musiri
December 15, 2016
BR: Actually Vairamuthu in an interview said he actually wrote Kamala Hasan (which would also fit to the tune perfectly) and he later changed it to Kama Rajan after brief discussion with Charan and Kamal himself.
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Sowmya:)
December 15, 2016
I read your movie reviews judiciously but your write ups on music are another level altogether. Amazing stuff.
Two points – as you mentioned, the music of Main shayar badnam did not interfere with the lyrics and let it shine. I find this less and less frequent with today’s music. Mostly I have to make a specific effort to figure out the lyrics. The music is in the forefront and the lyrics almost always, these days, take a back seat. I remember reading even Vairamuthu complaining about this phenomenon sometime ago.
One song that would fit your narrative would be ‘moh moh me dhaage’ from Dum Lagake Haisha. I did not notice it first when I saw the movie because it blended beautifully with the scene and actors. After hearing the buzz on social media, I went back and listened to it. Lovely piece!
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Radhika
December 15, 2016
Well, Shailendra worked as a mechanic in the Railways for a while, and Gulzar worked at a car repair shop where his job was to do the touch up painting of dented cars – so….
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Radhika
December 15, 2016
@Mank
Zihaal-e-miskeen is from an Amir Khusro ghazal. Gulzar liked taking one line from a well known ghazal and then doing his own stuff after that. Dil Dhoondta Hai Phir Wohi is another one- begins with that famous line from Ghalib
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Shankar
December 15, 2016
Baddy, I’ve never been a lyrics guy, always more interested in orchestration and sound (influenced by you know who!). That said, there are some that strike such a chord, even if they are no great shakes.
For example, I love these 4 lines from Vaayai Moodi Pesavum
“Podhum Nee Ini Varundhadhe
Nerangal Athu Thirumbaathe
Indrai Mattum Thernthedu
Indha Nodi Vaazhthidu”
Similarly, another song I love is from Anjaana Anjaani
Ab se koi khushi nahi
Jiski tum wajah nahi
Ab se koi din nahi
Jiski tum subah nahi
Ab se koi baat nahi
Jo tumse na hogi shuru
Ab se koi raah nahi
Jo tum sang main na mudhoon
Abhi ke abhi yeh ho gaya yakeen
Yeh zindagi meri ho gayee teri
Abhi ke abhi yeh ho gaya yakeen
Yeh zindagi meri ho gayee teri
Tumse hi tumse, har baat, har baat hai
Jab tum ho saath
The creativity that goes into it is just superb. Even something like the Manhattan song from English Vinglish, during the interludes reciting all the designer brands, I’m amazed by the confluence of tune, sound effects, words and the spirited singing…it’s magic.
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P
December 16, 2016
Thanks for all the cool Amitabh Bhattacharya mentions- other than Gulzar he seems to have written all my recent favorite songs!
Even Gerua is by him! UFF!
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chhotesaab
December 16, 2016
This is one of your signature pieces – only you can write and discuss the way this topic was discussed. The discussion and knowledge of the people commenting is intimidating.
Lyrics in hindi movie songs has obviously changed a lot, and is changing even more but so has poetry, in general, I would think. Having said that, it definitely feels like lyrics in songs are again more relevant than in the past 2 decades. My favorites of the current lot are Prasoon Joshi (Gulzar like), Swanand Kirkire (Javed Akhtar like, IMO), Amitabh Bhattacharya (versatility), Jaideep Sahni (contemporary, situational lyrics), Irshad Kamil (romantic songs).
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Bharathi Shevgoor
December 20, 2016
A great piece of writing as always. The concept of lyrics and its place in modern Indian cinema can make you reminisce forever.
Many songs filmed on Rajesh Khanna had great lyrics and they struck a chord. ‘Yeh Kya Hua..’, ‘Kuch toh log kahenge..’, both from Amar Prem; ‘Zindgai ke safar mein guzar jaate..’ and many others. Somehow he imbued them with more meaning due to his controlled expressions, I feel.
One can go on. It’s such a big time recall bait.
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Rocky
September 10, 2018
Was on a road trip recently and I put on Bheegi bhegi raton mein on YouTube, the YouTube then gave me “Barsaat key mausam mein” as a suggestion, and that had me search up a few more “Barsaat” songs which used to be my favorites , in no particular order-
1.Bheegi bheegi raton mein by Adnan Sami- there in no saani to this song , just amazing lyrics, music and rendition.
2.Abhee zinda hoon toh pee leney dey- I wish one day I could wander around on a random street in the rain with a bottle in my hand and be carefree enough to sing this song aloud.
3.Rim jhim girey sawaan – Love KK and the cool Bachchan sahab here , with the extra emphasis on “sooolag -sooolag” .
4.Aaj rapat jaaye toh – Fun song , although now I don’t like it as much.
5.Hai Hai yeh majboori- Zeenat Amaan looks absolutely ravishing in this song ( even though she bared it all in Qurbani, but did not look as inviting as she did in this song )
6.Paani rey paani tera rang kaisa – Another Manoj Kumar song, brilliantly picturized with Mukesh’ soothing voice.
7.Ab key sajan saawan mein – Doordarshan ‘s favorite song and movie.
8.Lagee aaj sawan kee phir who jhadee hai – Few songs I like of Sudesh Wadekar , did not suit it on Vinod Khanna though.
9.Sawan ka mahina , pawan karey Sore- Love the simplicity of the song .
10.Tip tip barsa paani – Raveena Tandon in drenched in a yellow saari- enough said !!
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Rocky
September 10, 2018
Great post, and agree totally on Main Shayar badnaam . I believe Anand Bakhshi sahab never got the kind of critical acclaim or ijjjat that he truly deserved ,
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Rocky
September 11, 2018
Some of my favorite lines from the songs penned by Anand Bakhshi-
1.Ulfat key dusmano ney koshish hazaar kee, Phir bhee nahee jhukee jo, uss nazar ko salaam..
2.Humko jo taaney detey hai hum khoye hain inn rang raliyon mein, humney unnko bhee chhupp chhupp kay aatey dekha inn galiyon mein..
3.Jeeney ka hai Shauk toh marney ko ho jaa taiyyar…Ho gaya hai tujhey pyaar
4.Bichad key bhee mujh sey juda toh nahee, khafa hai magar Bewafa toh nahin …
5.Ram ney hans kar sab dukh tyaagey, tum sab dukh sey dar key bhaagey..Krishan ney karam kee reet sikhai, tumney farz sey aankh churayee, ho Ram Duhai ……
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