Quirk Gun Murugan Sangeet Alochana
Quick Gun Murugan
The music of the movie is equally quirky. The people responsible for this musical eccentricity are Sagar Desai who gave us sweet soft rock-ish soundtrack of Straight, and Raghu Dixit. The lyrics are by Ankur Tewari and boy, what a job he has done. (His Wiki page shows he has done some noticeable behind-the-screen work for some famous music videos and films, including producing my musically favorite film/album Let’s Enjoy – music by the Punditz)
The songs are a super ride through yesteryear of Telugu, Kannada and Tamil movies. There is a hangover, or rather attempt of emulation of MGR and Dr Rajkumar films in some of the songs. But then, who said hangovers are a bad thing!
The first song on the disc is the now famous dialogues of the film. “Karma bhoomi mera yeh aangan, Terrace mera Neel gagan, You never mind what I have to say, Exclamation Mark’” This is silliness that you would love, or hate – but you will not be able to get it out of your heads (He-mess effect).
The album moves on to Raghu Dixit and Ramina Reddy’s ‘Murugan Superstar’. This is one of the more hummable song not intended to make you laugh out. I can see this song being there for two reasons – one, to tone down the craziness, and two, to have an introductory song to the character. May be it’s just the latter, which brings me to the next song.
Mika Singh does ‘Mind It’ and calls it ‘Tamil bhangara’ for some obscure reason. This is neither Tamil nor bhangara, and the only bhangara connection is the singer himself. This song is making waves on TV, but certainly not my favorite as it is too nice for an album like this.
Vijay Prakash has been singing for Hindi films for quite some time now, but never really got the kind of attention. In this album, he sings for the rest of the album, and these are the more essential songs.
‘Kyon Keeda Hai aapko’ is a lazy man’s ‘Don’t worry, Be Happy’. Again the lyrics do the magic with lines like ‘Oongli karte kyon har jagah..kyon vichalit hai kyon khafaa..kyon peeda hai kham-kha…chhode apna chirkut-pan..gootli chhodein khaye aam..aapse hum hain trahimaam’.
‘Ek tha Murugan’ begins with ‘oh-so-Morricone’ guitar riff, trademark of Western cowboy classics. It is as if Ennio Morricone shook hands with Kishore Kumar. Lyrically also, this is much in sync with day-to-day lingo like ‘Confuse na ho jaaoon..senti na ho jaaoon’.
‘Chat Mangni’ is the song of the album. A very stylish throwback to the songs of 60’s with fantastic lyrics –
‘O little flaval…
be my laval..
be my quick Chat mangni pat byaah laaval…
….
hai yeh pratham, preet re iss ki yeh’
You have to listen to the song to believe it. The usage of literary Sanskrit/Chalte-Chalte Hindi words (which are more prominent in South Indian language, and forgive me for generalizing those languages overlooking their individuality) is mind-blowing.
‘Kuchi Kuchi Twist’ is a 60’s ‘item number’ with very good singing by Hamsika Iyer and Vijay Prakash. These singers must have had fun singing for this numbers, as they amp up the fun quotient of the songs remarkably.
‘Naam mera Mango Dolly’ is another jazzy number. I could visualize this number as a perfect ‘Zoot cat’ song, with Toodles flaunting her black gown and red lipstick as Mango Dolly.
Next four songs on the album are remixes – Space Goddess is a psychedelic dialogue-infused (Pratichee Mohapatra with Vijay Prakash) ethnic trance version of Chat Mangni, while Mind It – Club mix by Mc Bobkat is as simple as it sounds. Aunties on the Floor is Chat Mangni remixed again with 60’s sounds and modern beats. Ragamuffin Mix (by Mc Bobkat) is ‘Kuchi Kuchi’ with twist being Tamil rap!
“On the whole”, this album shows that “some thought has gone into making”. Sagar Desai, Raghu Dixit, Ankut Tewari and all singers know what they are doing and having fun with it. Even to those who have no exposure to Southy sounds of the yore, this will whet their appetite.
Tags: Music, Quick Gun Murugan
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Yeah, it definitely sounds hilarious. I guess, it would be a treat to listen those songs whilst watching the movie provided that music is also too good/kinky to go along with those lyrics.
jazzy no.s, psychedellic dialouges, 60’s item no., lazy man’s ‘Don’t worry be happy.’
^Ye sab kuch sahi hain ya bana ke bol raha hain be.
Err… poster says – Music by – Daniel George. And you nowhere mentioned his name.
Negi – Sony made a huge boo-boo. The music credits should show Sagar Desai and Raghu Dixit’s names up there. The CD sleeve does not even mention the lyricist’s name.
Let me take this opportunity to mention few more credits!
Ek Tha Murugan is penned by Shelee (of ‘Pardesi’ fame, Dev D) and ‘Mango Doly’ is sung by Geeta John.
Have heard a lot of good things about the music of this film!! Am yet to hear it. Will buy it very soon. Thanks for the in depth review.
Nice fundoo album, with hilarious stuff as well as vintage nods, a la Johnny. Need to buy it, for all the effort and love gone in. Loved the Mango Dolly track with the band intros n stuff. I hate Raghu Dixit though.
BTW, Tejas, welcome sir.
Thank you Sirjee! Looking forward to enjoying this new hat..
awesome. listening to the whole album in loop now man. it’s just getting better and better…I might pitch in some writing too.
Looking forward to it!
what’s your rashee is also another enjoyable collection, some 5-6 light hummable songs.
Totally agree on ‘chat mangni..’ being the song of the album. I am stuck on it. Haven’t heard all yet. Can’t get over chat mangni and kyon keeda hai aapko
‘but you will not be able to get it out of your heads’
Bang on.
You have said it all what I was thinking for the last one week listening to QGM album.
The dialogue remix number is just intoxicating. I am listening to it 10 times a day and yet to get over with.
‘Drop the gun I say’…I say …I say… I say (echoe)
‘I will teach you manners ‘
‘Main correspondence course se sikh loonga’
‘Exclamation Mark !
Outstanding compositions.
The only problem with this album is the songs are dangerously hummable and if you are not in the right company, it would create an impression of insanity.
Like I tried singing ‘oooooooo little flaval’ at home and my wife thought I am drunk.
Kudos for writing this !
great album. brilliant review. thanks for this.
True, all.
@Negi – sabze lene ja raha tha tab jo words kaan par pade woh likh diye. ;)
@Flying Haathi – but if you are not in the right company, even the mention of the film will get some eyebrows raised. ;)
And I think the achievement of ‘Chat Mangni’ is that every time you sing it to biwi, the effect will be different.
‘Ek tha Murugan’ is more layered than it sounded the first time. I called it a Morricone song after first few listens, and now after play-counts, I feel it moves on to become a true-bluegrass a la ‘Man of Constant Sorrow’. That is a smart move if it was deliberate.
I agree. Its a true blue western sad song. The guitar riff is awesome !
Especially the line where he says ‘ lag gaya yarooon’ depicts the universal sorrow of any hero behind their machismo.
That’s what a good spoof should be.
err..I meant bluegrass as by Foggy Mountain Boys and Lester Flatts, or by Soggy Bottom Boys..but true blue sounds more appropriate now.
I am not to get to able over – Dialouge mix. thanks for sharing this.
Thanks Baradwaj Rangan for pointing this out –
O Little Flower is a remake of an old Sivaji Ganeshan song from movie called Neela Vaanam. The music was by genius MS Vishwanathan.