The Saiyaara Conundrum
I was flummoxed by how the Irshad Kamil-written title-track of Saiyaara had three separate names billed as “composers”. And they were not Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy but Tanishk Bagchi (the man known for endless “re-creations” despite his original work), Faheem Abdullah and Arslan Nizami, each an individual entity! Faheem has also sung the track.
Trivia Tunes: When Sunil Dutt got exhausted keeping his mouth wide open while lip-syncing to Mahendra Kapoor’s song
The obvious go-to person was director Mohit Suri, who shed light on this conundrum. Said Mohit, “We were toying with several ideas. Arslan gave Tanishk several tune concepts and he thought this was worth developing. Faheem was also involved, and he later sang the track.”
The ‘Killer’ Quote
And then Mohit gave what was a ‘killer’ quote when I told him that in the past, assistants or anyone else often gave concepts to composers who got solo credit. “That’s right!” said Mohit. “But happily, we are now in times where the correct credits have to be shared!”
True, sadly! I personally know of cases where assistants composed, arranged or ‘developed’ ideas and even gave the tunes. Many cases of covert or overt plagiarism came from there, like a 1996 hit which had a lot of reworks of Dr. Bhupen Hazarika’s non-film work in Assam! Any guesses there?
The ‘Sensed’ hit
It was well-known that the song ‘Chahoonga main tujhe’ from Dosti won the Best Lyricist (Majrooh Sultanpuri) and Best Male Playback Singer (Mohammed Rafi) awards from a popular magazine, along with Laxmikant-Pyarelal getting the Best Music trophy. But not many know that the song was not even going to be recorded, at least in the way it is. Long ago, Laxmikant had told this writer that it was actually re-written and re-imagined from a song L-P had recorded for one of their earliest movies that did not take off. The original lyrics were written (mostly by Qamar Jalalabadi as the composer was vague about which if the two lyricists they worked with then) for a female character. It was the title-song of the movie, Piya Log Kya Kahenge. The words went ‘Rut paapan more jee ko jalaaye’ with the title as the refrain. In the 1964 blockbuster, the corresponding words were ‘Awaaz main na doonga’. The composers used the tune as they sensed its potential, made Majrooh listen to it and pen the words as per the new situation.
And a chartbuster took birth and made history.
Speed and Quality
The permanent question in any creative profession is, ‘Does speed compromise on quality?’ Lyricist Anand Bakshi told me pithily that if I bathed in five minutes and he needed 20, it was not necessary that he had bathed better than me!
Which brings me to a historical fact. In the early 1970s, a group of older composers collectively complained in a written memo to—hold several breaths!—the President of India, about “unfair monopolistic practices” by composers Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, R.D. Burman and S.D. Burman (himself a veteran who was choosy)!
But please note: the level of creative excellence coming out of these names’ music rooms in that phase (with stray exceptions of a few films where the number of songs were also less!) was far higher than the work done by the complainants!
And then there is Ilaiyaraaja!
The multi-lingual legend, Ilaiyaraaja (yes, the guy who groomed Rahman!) was also the epitome of speed! In a career that has entered his 50th year, he has scored over 8000 songs and background scores for over 1500 films in nine languages!
Best known for his Hindi work in films like Sadma and the dubbed Appu Raja, the sole song, ‘Kaun dagar kaun shehar’ (by Lata Mangeshkar) in Lajja and his work with R. Balki (Cheeni Kum, Paa), he is always incredibly relaxed. When I met him about 15 years back, he composedly (!) informed me that many a time, after a brief from the filmmaker, he had composed the entire score of a film (six or more situational songs!) in a single day! If that’s not genius, what is?
The man who sang for the wrong hero!
This is a video that has now gone viral about a small anecdote shared by Abhijeet long ago. Called by Anu Malik for a song in a then-forthcoming David Dhawan film, Judwaa, Abhijeet, who never rehearsed for the composer a day or two earlier, recorded the song, ‘Tan tanaa tan tan tan tara / Chalti hai kya nau se gyarah’ with inflections focused on Govinda, whom he assumed was the hero, as it was a David Dhawan film! It’s another matter that the song went beautifully on Salman Khan!
When Mahendra Kapoor exhausted Sunil Dutt!
The late Mahendra Kapoor loved to narrate the tale of his hit song, ‘Na munh chhupake jeeyo / Aur na sar jhukaake jeeyo’ from his 1967 film, Humraaz. The music was by Ravi, who had composed the song keeping the singer’s powerful vocal throw and expertise in mind. Sunil Dutt, on whom the song was filmed, got exhausted keeping his mouth open wide when the singer vocalized the prelude ‘Aaaaaaaaaa…’ for a full 15 seconds at a sustained high pitch!
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