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20.september.2014
@ Having apologised and given vague reasons for not updating ItwoFS that often these days (arrey, composers are turning over a new leaf yaar!), there are times I'm completely compelled and excited to share info on lifts. This one's very, very close to my heart - something I have been searching for a very long time... since year 2000, in fact, when I downloaded a piece of unnamed music via Napster and found it to be very similar to a song by R D Burman.

The song, as far as I recall, was called Gulsenim, and had Azerbaijani roots. But it does sound like a street band in India playing Pancham's original. The song is question is 'Jeevan ke har modh par', from Jhoota Kahin Ka (1979). Now, I have finally stumbled on the actual original. The original is a 1976 song by none other than Carlos Santana - a song titled, 'Verão Vermelho', from the album, Festival. You hear the song once and you'd immediately go, 'Hey!!!' and continue singing Pancham's Hindi song. Pancham, being Pancham, evens out the tune and brings the various bits together into a cohesive Hindi filmy format, and even adds his own touches like that, 'Tu wahi hai' part.

The interesting trivia addition to this is Santana did not compose this song. The song was originally composed by Brazilian singer and composer Nonato Buzar, for a 1970 Brazilian TV series with the same title (Verão Vermelho, meaning Red Summer). The original song was rather short, just 1 minute and 37 seconds and was more music and less vocals (by Brazilian singer Elis Regina). Santana homage to Elis Regina in 1976 is a much closer version to Pancham's Hindi variant. Thanks a lead from someone named 'Nailni' (from the mail ID) - you've brought a very old quest to an end!

Listen to
Jeevan ke har modh par:
Verão Vermelho (Santana):
Verão Vermelho (Elis Regina):


29.JUNE.2014
@ Back again, after almost an year! The lift that forced me from my slumber is from Malayalam film music, courtesy Gopi Sundar. Those who follow my music reviews on Milliblog know that I consider Gopi as a dependable and consistent composer who is churning a good deal of likeable music across Malayalam and Tamil. Given this background, this lift is disturbing. The song is Ente Kannil Ninakkaai from the much-celebrated film by Anjali Menon, Bangalore Days. The original? Former French first lady Carla Bruni's Quelqu'un m'a dit (Someone Told Me), from her 2003 debut album of the same name.

The Malayalam song is sung by actress Nazriya Nazim and Gopi does make a minor attempt at smoothening the French pop sound of the original into something quite pleasant and seamless in his modified version. But, listen to both the songs back to back and the disappointment caused by the similarity will stare at you in your face.
Thanks to Anand Krishnan's comment on Milliblog!

Listen to
Ente kannil ninakkaai:
Quelqu'un m'a dit:


15
.AUGUST.2013
@ Here's ItwoFS coming out of its self-imposed exile, thanks to Lalit Pandit! T-series, while introducing the first song from the Ranbir Kapoor starrer, Besharam, adds, 'The music is composed by talented Lalit Pandit'. Right! Just that the most recognizable part of the song - Love Ki Ghanti - is lifted off the Italian song Bella Ciao! Scroll down this page to see me referring to this original in context of a Telugu song from Mahesh Babu's Businessman! Let me add the relevant part about the original, again!

The original is a legendary Italian revolutionary song named Bella Ciao. Interestingly, the original composer of Bella Ciao remains unknown, though recently, Bella Ciao's roots have been traced to a Jewish song titled 'Koilen' that was first recorded by Mishka Ziganoff in 1919.

Listen to
Love ki ghanti:
Bella Ciao (original):
Koilen:


03.AUGUST.2012
@ The last update in this site, on 30th June, started with this line: 'Trust the Bhatt brigade to bring ItwoFS out of a lull'. This update can start with the exact same sentence; after all, the next Bhatt brigade film is on the anvil. Yes, Raaz 3's promotions are out and we're ready with the next update on ItwoFS - I have never come across such consistency in plagiarism in any other film maker/production house!

Raaz 3's promo song, 'Deewana kar raha hai' is not composed by the main composer of the soundtrack, Jeet Ganguly. Instead, this song is created to Rashid Khan. It could well be credited to Egyptian singer Mohamed Hamaki since his song, 'Ana Lao Azeto' forms the base for the Hindi song. The original is from Mohamed Hamaki's album titled Naweeha (2008).

As usual, there are minor changes in Hindi, but the original can be identified very easily. Rashid uses pauses very effectively to break the first 3 lines of the original into almost 6 smaller portions, while the way he extends the word 'Sunehra' by focusing on 'neh' is a catchy deviation from the original. Alas... all these don't make the Hindi version original - just listen to them both back-to-back and marvel at the Bhatt ingenuity!
Thanks to Prithvi Malhotra for the lead!

Listen to
Deewana kar raha hai:
Ana Lao Azeto:

Note: As always, there is an outside chance of the CD containing a credit to Hamaki. But going by the Jism 2 experience (where Arko even refuted that he had copied anything... even in the face of such blatant evidence), the chances seem very slim.


30.JUNE.2012
@ Trust the Bhatt brigade to bring ItwoFS out of a lull. Yes! Pooja Bhatt directed Jism 2 - more importantly known as THE Sunny Leone's Bollywood debut - went live with its first trailer last night after a lot of teasing on social media by the production team. If I was allowed a digression, the tease involved showcasing a lot of Ms.Leone's body completely ignoring the fact that the lady's body parts are on display in lot more detail if only Indian users cared to search the web - digression ends.

So, the title song, 'Yeh jism' was part of the trailer and the credit for the song went to a composer named Arko Pravo Mukherjee. Mahesh Bhatt introduced Arko with, 'enchants us with his outstanding tunes'.

The only niggling issue is that the song credited to Arko in the trailer belongs to Turkish pop singer (yes, another Turkish singer after Tarkan hits India via the plagiarism route - good for world music, no?) Kayahan. The original is called 'Bizimkisi bir aşk hikayesi' and this song was part of Kayahan's 2003 album 'Ne Oldu Can' (What happened, my life).

The song itself has a standard Latino tune, oversung by Ali Azmat in the Hindi version, much like Kahayan's original. Arko smoothens parts of the song to make it seem well-rounded and adds the trademark lone, melancholic Bhatt-violin that all Bhatt-composers are usually (perhaps) forced to add as a Bhattouch. But it largely stays true to Kahayan's original - so much that the net is abuzz with the lift in just a day though I heard about it first from a message on Milliblog's Facebook page by Yumlembam Roshan.

LISTEN TO
Yeh Jism:
Bizimkisi Bir:

Note: It is quite possible that Kayahan's original is credited in Jism 2's CD. That still doesn't explain Arko's name attached with this song in many interviews and the trailer.


Permanent posts!
@ I've been trying to trace the originals of the following songs - any info that you think would help, please do mail me.
- Chalte Chalte - Chalte Chalte [Bappi Lahiri] - Supposed to be lifted off a German folk song.
- Anari - Woh chand khila [Shankar Jaikishen] - A very popular western classical piece, has also been used as a background piece by A R Rahman in the movie 'May Madham'.

@ Also refer to this page, which says, "He (Raj Kapoor) never hesitated to adapt tunes (such as 'Is libe dis, I love you' and 'Dost dost na raha', both in 'Sangam') which had appealed to him". So what are the sources of these tracks? If you know, lemme know!


@ This is more of a personal search than about a lift...it could be a possible lift too, btw! The song from the Maniratnam production, 'Five Star'...titled 'Rayile rayile' has a generous sprinkling of some world music stuff. For some reason Azerbaijani music pops in my mind, though its only a wild guess. Could anybody recognize the style/ country of this music? It can be heard in the one of the sites below!
Raaga | Smashhits | Musicindiaonline (5th song)

Please do mail me in case you have these tracks or know more about these!
Hindi
Anu Malik
Anand Milind
Anand Raaj Anand
Bappi Lahiri
Jatin Lalit
Kalyanji Anandji
Laxmikant Pyarelal
Nadeem Shravan
OP Nayyar
Pritam Chakravarty
Rajesh Roshan
RD Burman
Salil Chaudhry
SD Burman
Sandeep Chowta
Sanjeev Darshan
Shankar Jaikishen
Hindi - others

Tamil
A R Rahman
Deva
Ilayaraja
Karthikraja
Yuvan S. Raja
Tamil - others

Assorted
Coincidences
Indipop
Advt. jingle lifts
Telugu
Trivia
 
Disclaimer and help on audio files:
The site demonstrates similarities in music, usually compared between an Indian composition with that of a composition from another part of the world or within India. The final interpretation on what constitutes a similarity is entirely my assumption. The similarity thus deduced is not based on a purely scientific basis like note-to-note comparison nor am I musically knowledgeable enough to do that. The attempt here is to merely showcase similarities that are obvious to a normal person with no/ limited musical sense, in other words, the lowest common denominator basis for understanding similarities. This is also the reason why I use the terms 'lift', 'copied' or 'plagiarized' and not 'infringed' since this site is not ideally conceived as a legal proof for music plagiarism.

The Audio files included here are for demonstration purposes only and are merely edited clippings, mostly lasting not more than 30 seconds. The quality in which they are edited is also ensured to be minimal so that they may not replace actual, full fledged digital versions. The clips are not meant to infringe any copyright whatsoever. Please download and install the free Real Player to listen to these song files.

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