Music is universal, music is omnipresent. Good music from all over the world should be appreciated and when you try and appreciate melodious music, you unconsciously begin to hum that tune in the midst of your work. It keeps you going, giving you the energy to work; at least I believe in this. Even though we live in an era of communication and getting information on any subject is so easy when you have the clue, how many of us really know about the different folk and traditional tunes that are prevalent in the world. Not many of us, I believe; but it is not that difficult to hear these pieces of music in today's world. Even then we are largely ignorant about these.
Copying music has two dimensions - to lift the original tune as it is and to get inspiration from that excellent piece of music and try to include that in your own composition. While the former should be discouraged because it is blatant plagiarism; just like copying from your friend in the examination due to the fact that you were not prepared enough to take that examination. I see no harm in the second act because that is how you learn; you become enlightened and thus the music which emanated from one corner of the world percolates and penetrates to all the remote corners of the world. After all as Maria said in The Sound of Music, you can create any music by mere permutation and combination of Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do. I am of the opinion that when you want to use a particular piece of music as it is in your composition you must have the permission to reproduce it from the right owner. I know that it seldom happens but that is the way it should be; at least there is no harm in acknowledging the fact that you as the composer are well aware of.
Now let us come to the point. Kyun Hai Deewane Tu Akela was put to tune by Hemant Kumar and he made his daughter Ranu Mukherjee sing it. Ranu did a beautiful job in singing the song and I have managed to get a copy of the song for your listening pleasure. It was difficult to get and the recording is not that good, but you can still feel the melody. Here is the song.
After hearing this song I turned my attention to the song by Mary Hopkin which had reportedly influenced Hemant Kumar, "Those Were The Days". Here is the song and you yourself see the similarity between these two.
Welsh singer Mary Hopkin, no doubt, popularized the song in 1968; but she was not the first person to record it. A group called The Limeliters recorded it first in 1962 after the English verses were written by Gene Raskin. Raskin is now regarded as the writer of the English version but he never composed the music. Here is the version of the same song by The Limeliters.
After hearing both the English versions we can very well spot out the difference in the style of singing though the tune remains the same. Mary's version is softer than that sung by The Limeliters. There is a story of how Mary got to sing the song. Gene Raskin was a frequent visitor of the White Horse Tavern (mentioned in the song) in New York's Greenwich Village the 1960s and the song lamented the passing of the golden folk days of Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, and The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. Paul McCartney of The Beatles once heard Gene and his wife Francesca sing this song in a London club called the "Blue Lamp" in the mid 1960s. After discovering Mary Hopkin, Paul suggested this song to her and the rest is history. The song was produced by Paul McCartney under the newly created label by The Beatles called Apple. McCartney also produced the Spanish, German, Italian and French version of the song and Mary sang all of those. But it was not her but a French pop star named Dalida who popularized the song in these countries. Here is a playlist of the song in these languages, the tune remaining the same.
Now the question that automatically comes to mind is whether Gene Raskin composed the tune of the song himself or whether he was, in his turn, inspired by some other song. Indeed he was inspired by a Russian folk song called "Dorogoi Dlinnoyu" ("By the Long Road"), composed by Boris Fomin (1900–1948) with words by the poet Konstantin Podrevskii. It deals with reminiscence upon youth and romantic idealism. The Georgian Tamara Tsereteli (1900–1968) in 1925 and Alexander Vertinsky in 1926 made what were probably the earliest recordings of the song. This is the version by Tsereteli which I have also uploaded in YouTube.
Since this was the first recording of the song you can very well see the Russian touch to the song. A year later Alexander Vertinsky recorded the same in a slightly different manner and he was the one who popularized it among the masses. Below is the version sung by Vertinsky.
After this period the song has been sung by many Russian artists, each with their different style of singing and over the years the tune has transformed into Raskin's version of the English song. Below is a video to see how the tune has evolved within Russia itself.
So this is the story of the evolution of the song "Kyun Hai Deewane Tu Akela" from the 1972 Hindi movie "Bees Saal Pehle". Hemant Kumar, no doubt, copied the tune from the most popular version of the song those days by Mary Hopkin; but if I may add at this point that even Gene Raskin copied it from the Russian folk song set to tune by Boris Fomin. He is who deserves the credit and not Raskin as is popularly believed.
Please send in your comments because that is what keeps me going.
