Bollywood Roots: Na Bole Tum Na Maine Kuchh Kahaa

This is the second video in my new series “Bollywood Roots” on tracing the roots of influences in Bollywood music:

One thing worth clarifying: I’m not trying to identify naked copies. Copied tunes are a dime a dozen and frankly, are uninteresting. What I am interested in is tracing culture and influences. When I see a Hindi music director take a snippet of a 19th century Irish song and turn it in to a modern hit, I think that is talent. You may not. But I hope you recognize the difference between this kind of an inspiration and the Pritam-style note-for-note Korean copies.

In any case, here’s the story in the video above:

This time, the search has been 11 years in the making.

The song is “Na Bole Tum Na Maine Kuchh Kaha” from Basu Chatterjee’s “Baton Baton Mein”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157339/ starring Amol Palekar and Tina Munim. The music was by Rajesh Roshan, sung by Amit Kumar and Asha Bhonsle with lyrics by Yogesh.

I had no idea this song had any older roots than the 1979 film until 1995 when I was watching Die Hard: With a Vengeance and the tune plays throughout the film. Once more, I had a case of a western version of an Indian song appearing after the Hindi version. Clearly, the song had older roots- but I had no idea just how old. I was about to be surprised… 11 years later. It was this military beat with an orchestra playing the tune which is the main part of the Hindi song: (Read More)

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3 thoughts on “Bollywood Roots: Na Bole Tum Na Maine Kuchh Kahaa

  1. Devanshu,
    We heard the song lines of ‘Stalag17 and ‘Baton baton me’. Quite similar in general, but to identify and frame it in hindi tune is major task for any body, yes,
    Good job done. Actually, we( myself and Bhalubhai) saw this movie in Liberty cinema in Mumbai. We did n’t know
    that a song in irish language will turn in to wonderful hindi film song tuned by R/Roshan.
    Shirishkaka.

  2. Devanshu,
    We heard the song lines of ‘Stalag17 and ‘Baton baton me’. Quite similar in general, but to identify and frame it in hindi tune is major task for any body, yes,
    Good job done. Actually, we( myself and Bhalubhai) saw this movie in Liberty cinema in 1954 in Mumbai. We did n’t know
    that a song in irish language will turn in to wonderful hindi film song tuned by R/Roshan.
    Shirishkaka.

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