LAHORE: Let old songs be. That’s the message Lata Mangeshkar has for everyone remixing original classics into new songs.
Questioning the need to tamper with every popular number, India’s most-iconic singer said that “the trend saddens her”. “Where is the creativity in simply lifting acknowledged, beloved classics and shuffling the notes around?,” she said in an interview to Indian channel News 18.
Reacting to the remix of her iconic song ‘Chalte Chalte’ -- sung by Pakistan’s Atif Aslam for an upcoming Hindi film ‘Mitron’ – Mangeshkar said: “Nobody has the right to tamper with the creativity of great composers and lyricists.”
Aslam has yet to comment on her reaction.
नमस्कार .जावेद अख़्तर साहब से मेरी टेलिफ़ोन पे बात हुई उसके बाद मुझे महसूस हुआ कि मुझे उसपर कुछ लिखना (cont) https://t.co/XhzXrLhX8s
— Lata Mangeshkar (@mangeshkarlata) June 1, 2018
The official video of the song released last week and has already garnered more than 8 million views.
The original sung by Mangeshkar featured in the 1972 film ‘Pakeezah’ and was composed by another iconic musician of Indian cinema -- Ghulam Mohammed. It has remained a part of pop culture for more than four decades.
This is not the first time that the 88-year-old national award winner has expressed displeasure, tweeting about the practice in June this year: “To twist a song out of shape is just wrong... To ruin the core of the tune, to arbitrarily change the lyrics and to add cheap thoughts to them – this kind of nonsensical behavior causes me immense distress.”
Bollywood has earned itself a reputation of repurposing the old into something new. A few months ago ‘Ek Do Teen’ --- a classic song from Madhuri Dixit’s 1988 iconic film Tezaab -- was given an ‘upgrade’ in Bhaagi 2. The latest installment, starring Jaqueline Fernandes, sparked the original song’s director, N Chandra, to speak out against the remix and term the new version both “crass and similar to a sex act”.
