The fan obsession continuum

Tennesse Ernie Ford was an American country and western pop singer and a television host in the early 20th century. His songs are still relevant and exist in many renditions. He obviously had a huge fan following in his heydays and a large chunk of which still exists.

One of the biggest fans of Ford in the era of 50s was a prominent Indian. In fact this person was such a big fan that he decided to introduce Ford’s music to Indians, but without telling them it’s Ford’s. His name was Sachin Dev Burman. One of the stalwarts of Indian cinemas, SD Burman was the first choice for composing music for films throughout the decade.

One of the movies for which he composed music for was ‘Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi’, a cult film starring Kishore Kumar and Madhubala. Almost every song of the movie became an instant classic and almost every one of them was Burman’s attempt to introduce us Indians to Ford’s music. In case it is still not clear to anyone, they were plagiarised. One of the songs of the movie was “Hum the woh thi aur samaa rangeen, samajh gaye naa.” The song had the playfulness, which seamlessly gelled into the character of Kishore Kumar’s on screen persona and of course, the plot of the movie. The song in the movie is sung for Madhubala as she drives away in her car leaving a gawking Kishore Kumar and his on-screen, off-screen brother Anup Kumar.

Listening to the song carefully will reveal that it is exactly the same as Ford’s “Watermelon Song”, which was released just a year before the movie. Obviously SD Burman had access to foreign music way more than the average Indian in those times and he wanted to share that privilege with everyone. I am sure there is nothing more to it. But hey, there were other songs in the movie. Were they plagiarised…I’m sorry…shared privileges too? Maybe!

By Saharssh