Lyricists have raised the pitch for offering credits to their tunes.
On the 24th of July 2020, the critically revered movie ‘Masaan’ marked its fifth anniversary, after accomplishing a new niche for itself in the world of Bollywood Cinema. With that, it serves as one of the few Hindi movies where the screenplay writer, Varun Grover, has been glorified for the astounding piece of sheer perfection that he has delivered. The songs in that particular film, especially ‘Tu Kisi Rail si Guzarti Hai’ had left its listeners with a distinct allure so much so that they turned to the lyricist (Varun Grover) and the story behind it. To say that this is just once in a blue moon opportunity for a lyricist to be discerned portrays their dismal condition in the Bollywood Industry. Moreover to again mention the disheartening fact that only a handful of lyricists obtain such plaudits show the shrewdness of our audience.
Recently, Varun Grover along with a bunch of other people like Kausar Munir and Swanand Kirkire released a Video named ‘Credit de do Yaar’ which is a sort of lyrics writer’s anthem carping about the discrimination they are meted out with. The video featured fifteen lyricists such as Shellee, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Neelesh Misra, Manoj Muntashir, Mayur Puri, Kumaar, Sameer Anjaan, Anvita Dutt, Raj Shekhar, Puneet Sharma, Abhiruchi Chand, and Hussain Haidry, including the above three. Composed and produced by Chinmayi Tripathi and Joell Mukherjii, the particular video with a piece of jovial and dynamic music instantly stroke a chord amongst the viewers on social media platforms like Instagram as well as YouTube. The culture of disregarding the efforts of the lyricist has been existing since a long time now starting from the legends such as Gulzar and Javed Akhtar. It took numerous years for a skillful artist like Gulzar to be noticed after A.R Rahman made a hit with ‘Jai Ho’ from Slumdog Millionnaire.
They have expressed that when significant tunes are delivered on the YouTube channels of large music organizations or on streaming stages, music chiefs, vocalists, authors, and even the entertainers in the melody are constantly credited, yet the names of the lyricists are frequently incorrectly spelled or simply left out. At the end of the video, one can see how Varun Grover has heartily pleaded to give them their due credits even though they don’t expect people to remember their faces. He touches upon the harsh reality with this mildly accusing statement as to how only the faces of the famous singers are something people are generally acquainted with. But somehow, he managed to end with the note that songs stay with people and not faces for which the lyricists or “nagma nigar” should be applauded for their work.
On one hand, lyricists like Amitabh Bhattacharya, Varun Grover, and Neelesh Misra have received mammoth acclaims because of their poetic tinge in the songs as well as being associated with big banners and superhit movies. But on the other hand, Hussain Haidry and Shellee haven’t risen to that zenith of fame. Hussain Haidry has given the lyrics for ‘Bahut Hua Sammaan’ and ‘Chhipkali’, and Shellee has come up with ‘Daryaa’, ‘Hallaa’ and ‘Chonch Ladhiyan’ of ‘Manmarziyan’. It is all the more difficult for women lyricists like Kausar Munir, Anvita Dutt, and Abhiruchi Chand to be acknowledged for their flair in this art.
Through this video, they have pontificated their predominant problem which is while music streaming applications permit clients to sort melodies by name, vocalist, music writer, collections, and so forth, there is no choice to sort by lyricists. At the same time, there is no way for a person to search for their favorite song by the lyrics writer’s name. The same songwriters had been raising the issue on different stages for as far back as three years. It was getting redundant however nobody was tuning in. Ultimately, this seemed the logical way for their plight to gain some attention. Swanand Kirkire expressed grief at the fact that the digital format is the main nemesis of lyricists as compared to the tape recorders of previous generations. A couple of days back, Swanand Kirkire had called attention as to how the mainstream music application Spotify doesn’t specify the name of the lyricist on his Twitter account. After its release in India, Spotify has gone on to become one of the most sought after music applications because of its easy format and also because it is free. With such an algorithm in Spotify as well as Jio Saavn and others where it just categorizes songs by film names or singers, there’s no chance for the audience to be aware of the writers of the soulful songs they listen to.
Gulzar in one of his previous interviews said, “A poem is a free flow of expressions. In the song, it is not your statement. It is the statement of a story that has a character and a language and a tune which has already been compiled.” Henceforth, it’s all the more demanding to transpire lyrics attributing to a certain character or event in a film. Lyric writers push themselves to a huge extent to come up with a single song where the melodious voice of the singer is all that is accentuated without the people turning to the source of the lyrics. Or as Swanand Kirkire in the video sang, “Lafz bina awaaz kahaan?”
