Bollywood's all time outrageous songs

By: Mid-Day, IndiaFM
Thursday, October 18, 2007

They shocked us and entertained us - lyricists talk about some of their most outrageous numbers and what inspired them

'Dhoti ko phad ke rumaal kar gayi' - Dev Kohli for Jurmana

“Yeh to ek muhawara tha jisko gaane mein badal diya (this was an existing phrase that we used as a line in the song)

It was based on a situation given to me by the director and while thinking of lyrics for the song, we thought this dhoti-wala line would make for a fun song that fits in the film too.

“While writing lyrics, we usually look at using words that have not been used before.

At times someone says something or some incident occurs where some words strike you and a song is created out of it... baithe baithe gaana ban jata hai."

'Jab tak rahega samose mein aloo' - Anu Malik for Mr. and Mrs. Khiladi

“A samosa is incomplete without the aloo filling; it was this random thought that led to the lyrics of this song.

I even tried eating a samosa without the aloo; it's most bland! We had to express love between the protagonists and expressing it in a funny manner would be the David Dhawan way.

The song was recorded before the film and I put in 'tera rahoonga o meri Shalu' just so that it rhymes with aloo.

David liked the song so much, he named the actress Shalu in the film! I got a lot of flak for this song back then but people still laugh when they remember the song today. That's the purpose of these crazy songs!"

'Kassa kai, bara hai, I am Mumbhai!' - Javed Jaffrey for Bombay Boys

“The film was about Mumbai and when I saw Naseerbhai's getup, the 'bhai' image was stuck in my head. It wasn't long before “Mumbhai" was born!

“But an essential part of Mumbai and its bhai-giri is foul language.

Our first recording was an 'R' rated version, with the world's gaalis in it. When the team heard it there was a 10-second silence when faces turned white… we only wanted to freak them out and had a second version with lesser gaalis in it.

All those phrases of 'aasmani kabutar' and 'c'mon b**ger'… some of them just happened while recording, everyone has a bit of Mumbai in them afterall!"

'You are my chicken fry, you are my fish fry' - Bappi Lahiri for Rock Dancer

“This was from my own production Rock Dancer in which the song was based on a situation where the hero and heroine go to a restaurant and ask the waiter what they have on the menu.

The entire song is about food, it goes on to you are my samosa, you are my masala dosa… It's a great fun song.

“Indeevarji and I have made a number of crazy songs together. Saat mere aaoge, Ice Cream khaoge was born when Indeevarji and I were travelling by air and the airhostess brought us ice cream! Most of the time we convert things that happen around us into songs."

“The hit song Tamma Tamma came from an African song I had heard and I had no idea what it meant.

The Himmatwala song 'hey taaki ho taaki' was also a foreign influence. I heard the word in Ireland. They just linger in your head and then one fine day you land up putting it in a song!"

'Dard-e-Disco' - Javed Akhtar for Om Shanti Om

Farah Khan says: “Bhushan Kumar had once told me that in the Hindi film industry only two kinds of songs become hits - dard bhare gaane and disco type ke gaane… This was stuck in my head and I thought why not both together, it will become super-duper hit! That's how I caught on the word 'dard-e-disco' which I passed on to Javed-uncle.

He took the song to a whole different level. The lyrics are hilarious and that's the madness I wanted in the song.

“It's the time to disco and all that was already done, so this time we started rhyming it with bizarre words like San Fransisco and pachisko. I told Javed-uncle to use high-funda Urdu that should sound very profound but should mean nothing."