Ten of my favourite ‘multiple version’ songs: solo/duet (or more)

Many years back, I’d begun doing a series of posts on multiple version songs in old Hindi cinema. Songs that seem to have struck their composers/film directors as so impactful that they needed to be repeated, in different scenarios, sometimes in different moods and even with different singers, singing differing lyrics. I did two of those posts, then something cropped up (I don’t remember what) and the project got abandoned.

But I’ve got back to this now, and here’s a third post on multiple version songs. My earlier posts focused on solos: two-version songs sung by a male singer and a female singer; and the same song, sung by the same singer but in two versions.

This time, I’m focusing on songs that appear at least twice in a film, but at least once in the form of a solo and the other time as a duet (or more: one of the songs in this list has three singers).

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Ten of my favourite songs of waiting

The idea for this post came to my mind when I’d finished writing up my review of Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal’s Gaata Rahe Mera Dil: 50 Classic Hindi Film Songs. For me, one of the songs that was conspicuous by its absence from this enjoyable book was Tum pukaar lo, from Khamoshi. I love that song so much that I posted a Youtube link for it on Facebook—and found a lot of love for it among other friends and family members. A brief discussion with a friend, and we both agreed that it was one of those iconic songs of waiting. Out of that thread arose this idea: a compilation of good songs that are all about waiting.

Waiting, of course, can be of different types, and for different things. It can be a patient wait, for something one knows is coming one’s way. It can be restless, dominated by an urge to do something to alleviate one’s own suffering. Or the restlessness can be one of hopelessness, of knowing that one waits for something that can never come to be.

Aaja re main toh kabse khadi is paar, from Madhumati Continue reading