RAHMAN WAS HESITANT ABOUT THE HUMMA SONG
The maestro, who had composed the 1995 original, had doubts if the song should be recreated, but is happy with the outcome
Love it or hate it, but you can’t ignore The Humma Song, a rejig version of the 1995 classic, Humma Humma, that’s topping music charts. Composer AR Rahman — who had worked on the original, and shares credit with Tanishk Bagchi and Badshah for the new song for a Bollywood film — reveals he was skeptical of recreating this song.
“I wasn’t happy with the idea, initially. I was really hesitant about it at the start... But Shaad (the film’s director) was insistent. He kept on asking if we could use the song. So I asked Tanishk to come up with the first four bars of the song, and I kind of liked the beat. It sounded good and a bit different,” shares Rahman.
Soon after the song’s release mid December, singer Remo Fernandes — who had crooned the original track, filmed on Manisha Koirala and Arvind Swamy starrer for the film, Bombay — had slammed the new version. “The song is a pale, insipid version of the original,” he was quoted as saying in an interview.
However, Rahman is happy the recreated version — , filmed on actors Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor — is doing great, even if “it was a bad idea”. It has crossed over 7 crore hits on YouTube alone. “The fact that everyone sort of was listening to it on the New Years, shows that, people in the end loved it and that’s what matters. I mean even if it was a bad idea, it has worked very well, and everyone has fallen in love with it, which is great... It was done keeping the youngsters and the present audience in mind who have immediately identified with the song. As long as people are liking it, the song is good,” he says.