Inspiration with a twist
Trivia Tunes: This single Akshay Kumar song was written by as many as 4 lyricists!
The song ‘Pardesiya’ from Param Sundari is so reminiscent of A.R. Rahman’s early melodies, especially ‘Tu hi re’ from Bombay, that one wonders of the How’s and Why’s of it! Is it because the heroine is shown as a South Indian and the film is largely shot there? Is it because the otherwise completely original Sachin-Jigar has been ‘instructed’ to provide a ‘Southern style’ and a Rahman-esque melody? Is it because Dinesh Vijan has been (unduly) influenced by Rahman who has composed the one-hit (‘Param sundari’, the song that inspired this title!) score of Mimi and the unmusical Chhaava?
On the other hand, is it just a Sachin-Jigar fetish to emulate the man they always admired? Music directors of the past were known to emulate the styles of other composers: too many examples of such songs to enumerate here though!
Duos, trios and separate threesomes!
The title-track of Saiyaara may have become popular but stands out for its eccentric credit line. Music duos have been a prominent feature in Hindi movies from Husnlal-Bhagatram in the 1940s to Sachin-Jigar. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have been the first trio. When a song comes from them, it is not revealed how both (or all three) entities have collaborated on the composition. Ethically, no one, for example, wants to know the quality and quantity of contribution they have made in a song.
But what is weird is that the Irshad Kamil-written song has been composed by three different entities!! Tanishk Bagchi, Faheem A and Arslan N are jointly credited with the song!! So may we please know how the assembly was done?
Penmanship for all!
This takes me back by nine years when a gimmicky song, ‘Taang uthaa ke’ was credited to four (!!!) lyricists in Housefull 3! Composer Sameer Sen, the film’s writer-directors Sajid-Farhad, Mamta Sharma, who was one of the five singers and Sanjeev Chaturvedi are said to have jointly penned the under 3-minute number!!
The Great Gender Flip!
Laxmikant-Pyarelal, whose tenure as composers lasted over three decades, had to struggle through three shelved star-less films and a delayed release before they got Parasmani. One of the shelved films was named Piya Log Kya Kahenge, whose lyrics were penned by (mostly) Qamar Jalalabadi. The title-song began with the line ‘Rut papan more jee ko jalaaye’. Lata Mangeshkar was to sing the song.
But the duo could not forget the tune. When they worked with Majrooh Sultanpuri for the first time in Dosti, the lyricist heard it and suggested a male song (as per the new film’s needs) with fresh lyrics. L-P were a shade doubtful, but Mohammed Rafi also insisted that the composition would work with this gender flip! And the final result was the most popular song even among an all-hit score for that 1964 blockbuster—‘Chahoonga main tujhe saanjh savere’.
Divine timing!
In an Instagram post, veteran actress Saira Banu revealed that her popular 1967 bhajan, ‘Kanha Kanha aan padi main tere dwar’ sung by Lata Mangeshkar for Shagird, was filmed on the actress (along with Joy Mukerji, character artistes Achala Sachdev, Asit Sen and Nazir Hussain) actually on Krishna Janmasthami Day! The song, which had an emotional yet humorous angle, was penned by Majrooh Sultanpuri and composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal. The other trivia is that the song was shot by director Samir Ganguly at night as Hussain had to shoot with Saira’s then-newly-married husband, Dilip Kumar, by day, for Ram Aur Shyam in Chennai!
The writer who stood his ground for a rhyme!
Veteran lyricist Pt. Narendra Sharma, who has in the past christened All-India Radio’s shows Vividh Bharti and Hawa Mahal (among others), suggested the name Dilip Kumar for Yusuf Khan and also the name Navketan for Dev Anand’s production banner, staged a comeback after many years as a lyricist with Raj Kapoor’s Satyam Shivam Sundaram. Shortly afterwards, Raj signed him to pen a situational song for Prem Rog: ‘Bhanwre ne khilaya phool’.
Pt. Narendra Sharma’s self-confessed devotee, lyricist Sudhakar Sharma, recollects the second line of the song, which the veteran wrote as ‘Phool ko le gaya rajkunwar’. Says Sharma, “Raj-ji suggested that the word ‘rajkunwar’ be replaced by the simpler ‘rajkumar’ but Pt. Narendra Sharma held his ground—for the rhyme. Because of that unique word, says Sharma, the ace lyricist could bring in relatively-rarer words like umar, udhar, guzar, madhukar and sudhar in the rhyming cross-lines instead of standard words. This added to the charm of the hit song.
From Chaahat to Aashiqui
Lyricist Sameer recalls the Aashiqui story. Gulshan Kumar decided to record 11 songs for an album with struggling talents Nadeem-Shravan and him. The album was to be titled Chaahat and the first song recorded was ‘Main duniya bhula doonga teri chaahat mein’. Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt heard the songs and decided that he would write the story of a film around those songs: the only time this had happened before was with O.P. Nayyar’s tunes chosen by Shakti Samanta in 1964 for Kashmir Ki Kali!
Bhatt, who named the film Aashiqui was so enamoured by the music and the three newcomers that he took the responsibility of a promotional blitz for the music when Kumar was a shade apprehensive of the fate of the film and the songs!
Also Read: Trivia Tunes: When Mohammed Rafi and Geeta Dutt sang for an advertisement for a kerosene brand
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