Jognder Tuteja, Bollywood Trade News Network

Music of 'Life In A...Metro' has released just a fortnight back and is catching up well already. Now that's quite a commendable achievement since the rock genre is still in it's infancy stage in India, especially when it comes to Bollywood soundtrack. Nevertheless composer Pritam, his band, director Anurag Basu and UTV took the challenge and decided to take the plunge into making something unconventional.

Composer Pritam gets into an exclusive conversation with Joginder Tuteja to talk about the making of each of the songs and the stories that go behind the scenes.

Alvida
Sanjay (Gadhvi) wanted to use this song for his film 'Kidnap' but Anurag and Ronnie requested him to give it for 'Metro'. He was kind enough to let go of the song.

There is also a story behind this song. Raju Hirani introduced me to Sanjay because of this song and Sanjay in turn took this song from Raju and wanted to use it for his debut directorial venture 'Tere Liye'. Onir, Rangita Pritish Nandy and Saurabh Shukla also wanted to use this song in their films. I was discouraging everybody all this while to use this song because I think that this song has its best impact when sung live. I have seen that working in so many music shows or parties where I have performed LIVE to it.

There is a particular introduction which goes with this song in my shows where the message to one's lost love goes like, 'Hey bit$%, you have told me goodbye so fair enough. But trust me, you are going to miss me more than I would ever. And yes, don't ever dream of coming back to me!'

Now this is so different from the kind of parting message that one normally associates with love loosing away as in the earlier days, the message used to be on the lines of 'Koyi Jab Tumhaara Hriday Tod De.....' which indicated that if you ever have a broken heart, then don't think twice before coming back to me.

But here the message is - 'Don't you dare to do so!' Coming back to 'Alvida', it had a long angry coda resolving into the last soft lines 'Lo Un Bahon Ko Thandi
Chaon Ko Hum Bhi Kar Chale Alvida'. Amitabh Verma, the lyricist, has done a phenomenal job here! Nevertheless, when it comes to the music, I still believe that the orchestrated version has half the impact of LIVE!

In Dino
As I had told you earlier too, 'In Dino' is the fastest song I have made in my life. We were in Manori Bell hotel where we were cracking the 'Metro' songs. Anurag was humming something like 'ijazat' and 'mohabbat' and said that he wanted a song with those words. Just for fun sake I made the 'mukhda' and 'antara' and Anurag liked it.....!

You may not believe this but till the last moment I was trying to take it out of the album as I was not confident about a tune that was made so fast. Anurag's belief on that song has got it into the album. Also people associated with 'Metro' are so impressed with it that it is now our first promotional track.

Baatein Kuch Ankahee
This could just be a candidate for 'Believe It Or Not'. Guess what; the song has gone through at least 5 tune changes, 10 lyrics changes and 4 orchestration changes. How was this eventually achieved? Well call it Anurag's conviction due to which the song finds a place in the album.

O Meri Jaan
The track was made in the Manori trip with Anurag Basu. This is my favorite so I kind of forced it in. Anurag fondly calls it the 'dog song' because of all the
'oooooo...'s in it.

Rishtey
'Rishtey' is made completely on Sayeed Quadri's lyrics. He had the full song written which Anurag liked very much. I composed 5 versions on it and he decided to go on with the present version. Quadri saab is still laughing at me for making his sensitive lyrics a rock composition. I had no choice other than that because of the band factor....!

Kar Salaam
This song was due to my Assamese friend Lyton who was showing us Bodo dance 'Bagrumba'. The tune typical of this dance form was considerably catchy as I decided to adapt it into a rock style. Here is a tribute to the Bodo folk dance Bagarumba with a complete stadium rock version of it.