My first song :-)

More than a year ago, I noticed that one of my blog articles is getting lot of hits. I wrote that article, ”How To Write Lyrics For Hindi Movies”, as a sarcastic take on the quality (or lack of it) of lyrics found in Hindi movies. It was written almost 20 years ago on a Usenet group, and I just archived it on my blog. The search engines don’t have much sense of humor, so as you can see, this article appears at the top of search results! My apologies to those who were looking for real information.

That got me thinking. Why just lyrics? Why not compose a whole song? So here it is. A song written by me, tuned by me (!) and also sung by me :-) Don’t be afraid, read on.

First the lyrics.

agar maiN tum se yeh kahooN, mere dile mein hai too hi too
     mujhe hai bas teree hi aarazoo,
meree saaNso meiN hai too basee, aur manzil hai too meree
     ruh ko bhi hai teree justajoo

tere deedaar-e-ruKH-e-roshan binaa, zulmat-e-shab ho kaise fanaa
    gar haal-e-dil yeh kar duN main bayaaN
kya mere pyaar ko apnaaogi, ya rooth ke thukaraaogi
   kya hogaa tumhaaraa faisalaa

o meri jaan, o meri jaan
tere bin main kaise rahooN mujhe na KHabar hain na pataa
o meri jaan, o meri jaan
kuchh to kaho, yuN chup naa raho, ab aur naa lo imtihaaN

If you are feeling adventurous enough, you can listen to me singing it.



Now some clarifications. I have no illusion of being any artist. I am no singer, no lyricist and no composer. This is just a bit of fun. The lyrics are indeed written by me, and yes, I am the one singing it, if at all it can be called singing.

But the tune is not mine. It’s from one of my favorite Country songs, I told you so.

That’s the point of this exercise. If you are willing to plagiarize a tune, it’s extremely easy to come up with “your” song. The original lyrics give you an idea on where to start. The ready made tune provides a nice rhythm so that you can write fluid lyrics without having to worry about mundane stuff like meter ;-). In a couple of hours, you have a “new” song ready. No hard work required.

Maybe even more clarifications are needed. I am not advocating theft. Plagiarism is bad. It’s indefensible. Arguments such as “paying tribute”, “borrowing ideas”, or “making it more popular” are all flimsy, and wrong. I am just trying to illustrate how easy it is to plagiarize.