Jai Ho? Tell these Pussycats "Jai No"!
Written Feb. 25, 2009 by Larry Rosin in Content with 6 Comments
Over the end credits of the Academy Awards Best Picture winner "Slumdog Millionaire" is "Jai Ho," which won for best song as well. It is a fascinating blend of musical styles, and a sure-fire 'stadium hit' along the lines of "Rock & Roll Pt. 2" whenever stadium DJs get to it. If Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic was the song of 1997, this could just be the song of the year.
Except.
In an attempt to make the song more palatable for American audiences, it has been re-created with the Pussycat Dolls replacing the original singers.
Let's take a look at the original lyrics translated from Hindi:
Jai Ho! (Victory to thee!)Come, come my Life, under the canopy
Come under the blue brocade sky!Iota by iota, I have lost my life, in faith
I've passed this night dancing on coals
I blew away the sleep that was in my eyes
I counted the stars till my finger burnedCome, come my Life, under the canopy
Come under the blue brocade sky!
And now, the Pussycat Dolls lyrics for American consumption:
I got (I got) shivers (shivers), When you touch my body, I'll make you hot, Get what you got, I'll make you wanna say (Jai Ho)I got (I got) fever (fever),
Running like a fire,
For you I will go all the way,
I wanna take you higher (Jai Ho)I keep it steady uh-steady,
That's how I do it.
This beat is heavy, so heavy,
You gonna feel it.You are the reason that I breathe,
You are the reason that I still believe,
You are my destiny
With the exception of that very last line...could these lyrics be ANY more out of tune with the movie? Could they be any more wrong?
Radio programmers of America Unite! Shun this Pussy-footed version and play the 'real' song -- the one that people hear over the end credits and remember long after they've seen the film! Show the world that in the new Obama-America we can accept a song with Hindi lyrics (that also has a little interlude in Spanish!)
Jai Ho! Victory to thee!
Reader Comments
Your 2¢, in chronological order — add your comment below.
The rest of your entry was solid, but what the hell does Barack Obama have to do with Hindi song lyrics?
Time to arrive in the 21st Century, Larry. "Rock & Roll, Pt 2" is soooo 1972 and outta there. The new athletic event anthem is "Kernkraft 400" (Stadium Chant Remix) by Zombie Nation. It's what has 'em bouncing in the stands during the time-outs in both the NFL (Pittsburgh Steelers) and college.
Will, I think Larry was just trying to make a point using Obama's "change" mantra.
Culturally, we have lost a sense of poetry. The sweeping and insidious anti-intellectual movement ("it's cool to be dumb") is one of the major reasons our country is sinking lower and lower in the eyes of the rest of the world.
If we are going to be part of the global economy (which exists whether we like it or not) we're going to have to find a way to make intelligence a desirable thing again. The idiot reduction of song lyrics like this is just one minor example.
Don't be afraid of having a sizable vocabulary and using it. The lowest common denominator mentality will end up destroying us.
Point of order: there is no place for flavor of the month mentality in music or radio. That's the root cause of the problem, in that it panders to the lowest common denominator.
If Gary Glitter's "Rock And Roll, Part Two" was good in 1972, it's still good today. Time to get rid of using chronology as a barometer (and as a byproduct, that misleading and totally inappropriate description of everything from Chubby Checker to Pink Floyd as "oldies").
That said, yes, the dumbing down of "Jai Ho" with the Pussycat Dolls tremendously sells short the intelligence of the demographic that would appreciate the original.
This isn't the first time that music with an Indian flair has succeeded on the American charts. We can go as far back as such hit singles as the Cyrkle's "We Had A Good Thing Goin'" (1967) or the Rolling Stones' "Paint It, Black" (1966) for examples. Then of course there are the obvious "Tomorrow Never Knows" (1966) and "The Inner Light" (1968) by the Beatles. So much for the "we've really become enlightened since then" mentality.
The original, un-Pussycat version apparently wasn't too esoteric for Jay Leno, who had the film's cast perform it live on The Tonight Show a few days ago. But if radio continues to run scared and sell its audience short like that, what little is left of its target deomgraphic will continue to dwindle.
America has been listening to Hindi music as well as other world music since way before Obama and will continue to do so after Obama. There is nothing "new" about America after Nov. 4th, 2008 that wasn't true on November 3rd. Namaste.