Yuvan Shankar Raja could possibly be a huge Spiderman fanboy! Remember the theme music of the original cartoon Spiderman series? The same one we used to wait desperately on weekend noons on Doordarshan, just before heading to start the cricket match! Ah, who can forget that? Now, how would you react if I say that the same theme tune has been used in Yuvan’s latest, ‘Chennai 6000028′? Hard to believe, huh? But yes, it has been used – if I may add, very very intelligently, right upto the choice of instrument, as an interlude, in the track, ‘Saroja saamaan nikaalo’ (more on this song’s title – in the trivia!). Very smart, Yuvan. No, I’m not blaming him this time – this is perhaps the real way to pay homage, I guess! Incidentally, many others have done it, with this theme, according to Wikipedia!
Trivia on Spiderman cartoon theme: A spidey fan site helps us with the details of the cartoon theme’s credits – Words by Paul Francis Webster and music by Bob Harris, Stu Phillips and D Kapross. Also, the mention of Charlie Mingus’ 1959 boogie track, ‘Boogie stop shuffle’ as the possible inspiration for the cartoon theme seems well grounded too! Listen to Boogie stop shuffle (Charlie Mingus).
Trivia on the words ‘Saroja saamaan nikaalo’!: I recall reading Chennai 6000028’s director Venkat Prabhu talking about where he got these words. Director Shankar’s Arjun starrer Mudhalvan (Nayak, in Hindi) had a scene, where, after becoming the ‘one-day-CM’, one of the chores that Arjun attends to is to weed out subletting on government-allotted quarters for slum dwellers. They had incidentally sublet their quarters since it fetches better returns. One of the doors Arjun knocks with the entire media in tow is a ‘Sat(e)’ (Chennai parlance for any North Indian businessman/ moneylender – usually a Marwadi!). After the initial resistance the sat(e) agrees to move out and yells out to his wife (Sushma, not Saroja, however! – Source: Triviapettai), ‘Sushma saara samaan nikaalo’ (In existential terms, it means, “Saroja, get our worldly belongings out!”)
Recent Pritam-gyan on plagiarism!
What about the charges of plagiarism?
Have I ever said that all my songs are original? Whenever I’ve been inspired by a song, I make sure to acknowledge its copyright. I don’t do anything illegal, I don’t massacre a song. It takes as much effort to recreate a song as it takes to compose an original. My job is done when people dance to the songs I create. If the issues of copyright are sorted out, blind plagiarism will be eliminated from the music business. (Source: Hindustan Times)
Answering charges of plagiarism, Pritam said: “Yes, there have been times when I’ve adapted from outside sources. Often I’ve been persuaded to so do by producers or directors. But I can’t only blame others. I’ve also adapted songs on my own initiative. But the endeavour is to always make the adaptation different from and better than the original.
“I’m glad my music is under scrutiny. It means my music makes a difference. I work very hard on a so-called ‘lift’ to make it interesting. I add my own melody and sound to it. So the credit can’t be taken entirely away from me. The origin of a tune is just a part of my job as a music director and an entertainer.” As for the Internet watchdogs, Pritam said: “They keep the creative process alive and progressive. As for my controversial hit songs, aren’t they opening new avenues of business?” (Source: Webindia123)
Tamil composer Harris Jeyaraj- he’s done everything but direct lifting – use the original’s pattern and flow but considerably tweak the pitch, use very similar chorus pieces at similar points in the song, but again change the tune for those – in all it makes for a very interesting study into how Harris conjures up his tracks. Lets start with the song from Gautam Menon’s ‘Derailed’ rip, Pachaikili Muthucharam (2007), ‘Karu karu vizhigalal’. It bears uncanny similarity to the structure of Westlife’s 2005 hit, ‘Hit you with the real thing’ from the album Face to face. The opening 4 lines make way for a similar sound thereafter – but all with an entirely different tune!
The other songs from Harris’ repertoire are from his delightful soundtrack for the dud of a film, Unnale Unnale – ‘Ilamai Ullasam’ which uses its most prominent hook (‘na na na na na’!!) from Ini Kamoze’s 1994 chartbuster ‘Here comes the hotstepper’ and the very successful, ‘June pona’, that is almost heartbreakingly similar to boy band Blue’s 2001 debut, ‘All rise’! While the former is fairly direct – same pattern, tweaked pitch, the latter makes for a neat case study in inspiration – similar organ prelude, the ‘netru enbadhum’ chorus appearing in almost the exact same spot as the original, plus the vocalizing effects in the background, its all there in the Tamil version!
Kishore Kumar has often been called the ‘Danny Kaye of India’ and quite a bit of singing seems to have been inspired by the Hollywood comedian. So, its quite possible that Kishore was instrumental in getting composer Hemanta Mukjerjee to adapt Danny Kaye’s 1946 hit, ‘Oh by Jingo!’ as ‘Shing nei tobu nam tar shingo’ for the 1958 Bengali comedy hit ‘Lukochuri’ starring Kishore Kumar and Mala Sinha. The singing and mukhda are quite evidently and blatantly used in the Indian version.Besides this Danny Kaye connection, there’s another that I’m looking for more information. The song from the 1962 Kishore Kumar starrer, Half Ticket, ‘Woh ik nagaah kya’ is supposedly inspired by a scene from Danny Kaye’s 1954 film, ‘Knock on wood’. Now, I’ve not seen both the the films in question, but would like to know from someone who has, if there’s a musical/ song lift involved here. Trivia on Oh by Jingo!: ‘Oh by Jingo’ was originally composed by Albert Von Tilzer, with lyrics by Lew Brown in the year 1920! Danny’s version came much later in 1946. The original was recorded by the Premier Quartet as ‘Oh by Jingo! Oh by Gee’ and was released on Edison Blue Amberol Cylinder record in August 1920 and on Edison Diamond Disc 50666-L in September 1920.
The next in line is a catchy hook lift and considering that hook is almost everything for a song like ‘Signal’ (Isn’t that the main thing you remember and hum?) from Bhagam Bhag (2006), this does sound considerable. The original is a rather interesting track! Its called ‘Signal for Lara’! And the song happens to be composed as a tribute to Brian Lara when he broke the world batting record for the highest individual score in first-class cricket (501 not out for Warwickshire, against Durham) in 1994. The track was composed by Trinidadian, Soca artist Superblue (born Austin Lyons). The song was part of Superblue’s 1995 album, ‘Happy Carnival’.
Next, is simply a single line lifted out of obscurity! In Metro (again!) – the song, ‘In dino’! The line, ‘Hai tujhe bhi ijazat, karle tu bhi mohobbat’ seems exactly like a line from Pakistani singer Waqar Ali’s (brother of another famous Pakistani singer, Sajjad Ali) beautiful song, ‘Mera naam hai mohobbat’ (album by the same name, released in 2001) – the line, ‘Do dilon ki ijazat, mera naam hai mohobbat’! Considering the similarity with the use of the words ‘Ijazat’ and ‘Mohobbat’
This is more of a personal search than about a lift…it could be a possible lift too, btw! The song from the Maniratnam production, ‘Five Star’…titled ‘Rayile rayile’ has a generous sprinkling of some world music stuff. For some reason Azerbaijani music pops in my mind, though its only a wild guess. Could anybody recognize the style/ country of this music?
Please do mail me in case you have these tracks or know more about these!
NOTE: No offense meant to any composer – living or dead!
