A program on Vividh Bharati (Chhaya Geet) triggered this idea…..there are few songs which have exactly the same tune and they have been haunting me for quite a while now – sometimes composed by the same Music Director and some times by different MDs. In addition to the songs and tunes generally inspired by Western music, we do have lots of remakes (not remixes) within our own Bollywood as well.
1. Kya kya na sitam tujh pe hue mehlon ki rani (Mohini, 1957) and Tu hindu banega na musalmaan banega (Dhool Ka Phool, 1959) : N. Dutta composed music for both these films. Raja MehdiAli Khan penned the lyrics and Rafi sang for Raj Kumar (?) in Mohini (tried searching for the video but couldn’t find it, so not sure if it’s actually picturized on Raj. I am going hunting for this movie next) and Rafi sang Tu hindu banega na musalmaan banega to the tunes of N. Dutta again 2 years later which was almost the same and this time for Manmohan Krishna in this Yash Chopra Blockbuster starring Rajendra Kumar, Mala Sinha, Nanda, Manmohan Krishna and Ashok Kumar. Owing to the success of the latter, even the song became more popular than it’s former identical version .
2. Badi muddat se dil ki bekaraari ko karar aaya Besaharon ka zamaane mein sahara hai khuda…..choota watan hamara (Khuda Ka Banda, 1957) and Parvar diga re aalam (Hatimtai) : I couldn’t find the song from Khuda Ka Banda. Please let me know if any of you have this song or can find it somewhere. The other day it was playing on radio ( I hope I had saved the mukhda correctly) and for a moment I thought it was Parvar diga re aalam. Again, Rafi rendered to both these songs composed by S.N Tripathi.
3. Bol bol my little dove (Baap Bete, 1959) and Hai ho dilruba meri neeta (Dil Deke Dekho, 1959) : Unlike the other two above and the one below, these two movies had different Music Directors. Music for Baap Bete was composed by Madan Mohan and Dil Deke Dekho by Usha Khanna. No idea who ispired who. And it’s Rafi again singing both these songs. Found the video for Bol bol my little dove.
4. Aaj mausam ki masti mein gaye pawan (Banarasi Thug, 1962) and Ek Chameli Ki Mandve Thale (Cha Cha Cha, 1964) : Iqbal Quereshi this time but both the duets have Rafi again! I can’t help mentioning how dashing Manoj looked in the former and how gorgeous Helen was in the latter.
I always thought Chaand jaane kahan kho gaya from Main Chup Rahungi was similar to Ek Chameli Ki Mandve Thale. And then I heard Aaj mausam ki masti mein gaye pawan.
Please help me figure out why these music directors chose to tune two such identical songs in two different films! (this was the question I had in mind when I started this post). And now – why did they all get Rafi to do it????
Tags: Aaj mausam ki masti mein gaye pawan, Baap Bete (1959), Badi muddat se dil ki bekaraari ko karar aaya, Banarasi Thug (1962), Bol bol my little dove, Cha Cha Cha (1964), Chandrashekhar, Dhool Ka Phool (1959), Dil Deke Dekho (1959), Ek chameli ki mandve tale, Hai ho dilruba meri neeta, Hatimtai, Helen, Iqbal Quereshi, Khuda Ka Banda (1957), Kya kya na sitam, Madan Mohan, Manmohan Krishna, Manoj Kumar, Mohini (1957), N. Dutta, Parvar diga re aalam, Rafi, Raj Kumar, S.N Tripathi, Tu hindu banega ya musalmaan banega, Usha Khanna
Bhooli Bisri Sunheri Yaadein 
May 12, 2010 at 10:12 pm |
Your previous post reminded me that Manna Dey’s “Poocho na kaise maine rain bitayi” and this song in Bengali (watch?v=9Hdsp9z-n58 Nazrul geet–I learnt all this from Youtube university) are exact. S.D Burman acknowledged it too.
May 13, 2010 at 6:55 pm |
There are lots of songs like that….exact copy of Bengali songs and other regional language songs as well. Have heard quite a lot of them. I live in Hyderabad, sometimes I tune into local radio channels and I get all set to sing the song based on the music and once the song begins, I realize that the lyrics is in Telugu.
May 13, 2010 at 10:50 am |
Great post!
It’s true that BOL BOL MY LITTLE DOVE (Baap Bete) and KAUN YEH AAYAA MEHFIL MEIN (Dil Deke Dekho) sound alike. There was an English number of Paul Anka in 1957: I’M SO YOUNG AND YOU’RE SO OLD, THIS MY DARLING I’VE TOLD… The Hindi songs are copies from this tune. One says “Sheila” the other says “Neeta”. The English number says “Diana” – “Oh please stay by me Diana…” I love the DDDekho number and picturisation.
Similarly, the title song of Dil Deke Dekho is copied from SUGAR IN THE MORNING SUGAR IN THE EVENING SUGAR AT SUPPER TIME, BE MY LITTLE SUGAR AND LOVE ME ALL THE TIME that sold one Million copy in the late Fifties. Someone claimed in turn that it was copied too.
Call it iplagiarisation, or call it inspiration. I’m sure the readers will find quite a few other instances too. I remember the Janwar song: (I love that) DEKHO AB TOH KISKO NAHIN HAI KHABAR which was the original Beatles number: I Wanna Hold Your Hand…” We remember LP and Bhappi Lahiri war of words for CHUMMA CHUMMA tune that was lifted (from the Dark Continent tune?) The Namal Halal numbers too. And so on…. Not to speak of the tunes copies from Pakistan numbers. Speaking of which, MD Khayyam precisely was dropped from Barsaat Ki Raat for not obliging the Producer in that direction. That is how Roshan came into the picture there.
I haven’t heard BADI MUDDAT SE DIL KI…. though I’ve heard BADI MUSHKIL SE DIL KI BEQARAARI KO QARAAR AAYE (Film Najma? Shamshad Begum). Perhaps this was the song you referred to? The metre of PARWAR DIGAARE AALAM doesn’t fit. Please let us know.
Regarding the Mohni number: KYA KYA SITAM…and Dhool ka Phool’s TU HINDI BANENGAA NA MUSALMAAN… the latter was superhit.
I would love to watch MOHINI again, since I don’t remember a thing, except for a faint recollection that it was some sort of mythological moovie that can be bracketed with SUVARNA SUNDARI and BAHOT DIN HUWE.
Then we have the same tunes for the songs in regional languages. Not a bad idea at all.
May 13, 2010 at 7:02 pm |
I like Paul Anka’s Diana. Could’t find the video of Bol bol my little dove but I love Dil Deke Dekho song the best, even better than Diana. I guess that’s what love for Shammi Kapoor does to a person 😉
And Sugar in the morning is cute too but again it doesn’t have Shammi Kapoor in it.
True, most of the songs were inspired from somewhere else….but here in 3/4 cases, it’s the same music director who has reused his own tune.
I haven’t seen Mohini , but I want to.
Badi muddat se and Badi mushkil se are two different songs. The former is a Rafi song from a movie named Khuda Ka Banda . I am searching for the songs, will upload it if I can find it. It sounds just like Parvar diga re .
May 13, 2010 at 9:46 pm |
I don’t remember song from Khuda Ka Banda. I did hear KUCH NEK KAAM KAR JAA from that movie.
Another aspect of such songs is that music directors copied te tunes from their own background music in older movies. I wish I had made a note of such songs and music. The ones that readily come to my mind is AAJ PURANI RAAHON based on the background music in Mughale Azam (when grownup Salim is coming back from battles for the first time.) Even the song from Jish Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai: O BASANTI PAWAN PAAGAL is based on background music, perhaps in Aawaara.
May 16, 2010 at 2:13 pm |
I too heard it just once on radio last week, hopefully I’ll be able to track it down some day.
That’s another interesting aspect. I was paying extra attention to the background score today while watching a movie….but it only had the music of For he’s a jolly good fellow in one of the scenes.
May 15, 2010 at 6:23 am |
Wow, I hadn’t realised this! But then, I have to admit that there are a number of songs here in your list of which I’ve heard only one version – for instance, I’ve heard Meri Neeta (which I knew was inspired from Diana), but I hadn’t heard the other one.
One of husband’s favourite songs is Mujhe raat din from the Akshay Kumar-Preity Zinta starrer Sangharsh. It’s a very faithful copy of Mujhe dekhkar aapka muskuraana from Ek Musafir Ek Haseena.
May 16, 2010 at 2:20 pm |
I have to admit myself that I hadn’t heard some of these songs myself before. And coz of that it took me so long to search for them. Oh yes, that sangharsh song definitely is a copy of Mujhe dekh kar aapka muskuraana . There are so many such songs yet to be discovered.
May 16, 2010 at 5:22 pm |
Nice post. That was the first part of Chayageet i have done. Planning the second part also. One of my friend told me about your post. Visiting here first time. nice blog. will surely see older post also in coming weeks. regards
yunus khan
vividh bharati
mumbai
May 17, 2010 at 5:30 pm |
Thank you so much for dropping by!!! I can’t tell u how happy I am to see your comment! 🙂
I actually wanted to send this post across to the Vividh Bharati team but I am very bad at remembering ids. 😦
I wanted to thank Mr. Venkatadri as well coz you had mentioned him at the end of the episode. I found few of his articles at http://www.mohdrafi.com/ but couldn’t find his mail id. I would be very grateful if you could message me his id. I would like to personally thank him and you, of course, for introducing me to these songs which otherwise I would never have come across.
Vividh Bharati has been a part of my life for years now. It has played such a big role in enhancing my love for movies and music and thus this blog too.
My love and regards to the entire VB team!
May 20, 2010 at 4:37 pm |
Wow! This is a revelation!
Some of the older versions are hardly known.
Thanks for this fabulous list.
BTW two quite different songs, whose lyrics can be very easily swapped are:
Tumhi ho mata pita tumhi ho
and
na javo saiyaan chudaa ke baiyaan!
May 20, 2010 at 5:04 pm |
Thanks 🙂 Some of them were new to me too. Thanks to Vividh Bharati – heard them for the first time there.
I was pleasantly surprised listening to these songs. I am waiting for Yunus to do a second episode on this so that I could add those songs as well.
Let me listen carefully to Tumhi ho mata and Na jao sainyaa now. 🙂
May 21, 2010 at 5:06 pm |
Hello May I help you in finding song of movie Khuda ka banda-which is’ Chhoota watan hamara’ and not Badi muddat se dil ki bekrari ko karar aya as mentioned by you.You can find this song on link :http://hindi-films-songs.com/song4/1957071402-khda-ka-banda-besahron.mp3
May 23, 2010 at 5:43 am |
Thank you sooooooooooo much Harmeet!!!! 🙂 I usually write down the mukhda of the song when I hear them on radio, if I dont know them, so that I can track them later on the net. I must have got confused with some other song here 😦
I was getting very restless coz I couldn’t track that song. Thanks a lot! You made my day.
May 26, 2010 at 12:46 pm |
Great, your post had me thinking and one of the songs of recent times that jumps to my mind although of different composers is Ringa Ringa of Slumdog millionaire and choli ke peeche from Khal nayak both songs had Ila Arun in them too
May 26, 2010 at 5:34 pm |
There are lots of such songs which have things in common. I’m compiling another list for part 2 🙂
May 27, 2010 at 4:28 pm |
“venkatadri brahmandam” ,
May 27, 2010 at 4:38 pm |
“venkatadri brahmandam” venkat underscore brahmandam at yahoo dot co dot in
May 27, 2010 at 4:43 pm |
Thank you so much! And do let me know when you do the second part, plzzzzzzzzz. I usually don’t miss Chhaya Geet (am listening to it right now in fact….it’s playing teri aankhon ke siva duniya mein rakha kya hai :-)), but sometimes if I get late coming back from work, I dont get a chance to listen to it.