How to write lyrics for bollywood movies

Vani at white phosphorous had written an interesting post on Hindi songs with wacky lyrics. That Post lists some famous Bollywood songs which never deserve to be hits, but still did.

This reminded me of my graduation days where we used to write Hindi “movie” songs, just like those, or better. I couldn’t help but writing about our contribution.

Some tips here:

• No experience needed for writing a song, compose background music for it. When we (me and another copyright holder sarkar) wrote some songs and sung it in the middle of the night (in hostels life starts at mid night) the whole hostel went crazy. I guess they were cheering us, most of them were geeks.
• Read news paper, blogs etc. pick a sentence first catches your eyes, write it down. Check Orkut scraps, mail regularly. That can make a great start up line

For example, there was a superhit song in movie “rakshak” Suneil Shetty and raveena:

“ Ladkeeeee haaaan shehar ki ladkeeeeeeeeeee,

ankh churake bole hay haawaryu haay haawaryu haay haawaryu

ankh milake bole haw do you do haw do you do haw do you do

I believe, lyricist picked up it from orkut scraps.

• Remember general conversation with your friends, girlfriends etc. keep logging chat and instant messages also. There are some examples which went very super hit in Hindi industry (remember: accha to hum chalte hein…)

• When mention a movie song when I have my own. We framed it some seven eight years back. Though the song is not sold we still hold copyrights of it

Male voice: Maine tumko dekhaaa….

Female voice: kahan dekha..kahan dekha…

Male voice: Maine tumko janaaa….

Female voice: kyajanaa.. kya janaa…..

Male voice: shaadi karogi…

Female voice: na na…. na na… na na…

Both together and chorous: lallalallala…..

We even had our dance steps also worked out for this.

• Remember every thing can be music. Koyal ki koo koo main , bachche ki susu main, sangeet hi sangeet hai.
• Think from other people perspective. Feel for poor, oppressed, refugees, animals, plants anything, and think what they think. For exmple : Main character is feeling bad about a stray dog.

paagal kutta meraa… tumse ye Bhonk rahaaaaaaa ..

abto tere bina bhonka jayenaaaaaaaaa…………..

• Finally rants. Write what you think when you are not actually thinking. Insert sounds and words, which no one has any idea. Include political , social cultural and historical events in between. Go crazy. One example:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa meraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa mera sundar sapna yaad aaya….main banke chidiyan ud gayiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa……. mera sundar sapna yaad aaya……………..dhinka chikir dhin dhinka chikir dhikta tana tana nana na