Ten of my favourite workplace songs

Several months back, as I was posting my housework songs list, I couldn’t help but think that there are a fair number of songs, too, of people going about singing as they do other work: paid work, not just the unpaid labour that is housework. Work done with the hands, especially—repetitive, monotonous work which requires little focus—is easily accompanied by a song. A workplace songs list seemed doable.

My original plan had been to restrict the songs in this list to those where the singer works as he/she sings. But then I realized that a few of my very favourite songs have people singing in their workplaces, though not necessarily working at the same time. While I have tried to ensure at least some of these songs have people working while singing, some are merely what the title of the post indicates: workplace songs. Whether you’re actually working, or taking a break while you sing a song.

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Ten of my favourite Shamshad Begum solos

This is an important year when it comes to Hindi film music—because 2019 marks the birth centenary of some of classic Hindi cinema’s greatest in the field of music. Music director Naushad was born a hundred years ago; lyricists Kaifi Azmi and Rajendra Krishan were born a hundred years ago; and two of Hindi cinema’s most popular playback singers—Manna Dey and Shamshad Begum—were also born in 1919, less than a month apart.

Born in Lahore on April 14th, 1919, the day after the horrific Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar (which is just about 50 km from Lahore), Shamshad Begum never had any formal training in music. Her prowess as a singer, however, came to the fore very early, and by the time she was 10 years old she was singing in family marriages and religious functions. In the teeth of parental opposition, she was helped by an uncle who got her an audition with Ghulam Haider. In 1937, she began singing with All India Radio Lahore, and this proved a breakthrough—such a breakthrough that Shamshad Begum was offered a role as an actress and even bagged it after a screen test. Thanks to a very conservative father (who had insisted she wear a burqa even to sing!), Shamshad Begum had to finally decline the role and focus on her singing.

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