Stop bugging me, stop bothering me,... MERI MARZI!
It came out of the deep blue something: a thought, in the middle of the
afternoon. You have to listen to Mata Oh Ah Eh today, a
voice in my head said. And I sat down, trying to find that song online
(I used to have it on tape, but of course my tapes are at home in
Bombay) and all of a sudden more memories came back.
For those of you who don't know what the hell I am talking about, I am
referring to the song, Mata Oh Ah Eh. You might remember the
early 90s (I think it was either 1991 or 1992) song It's My Life
, performed by a black dentist from Sweden who assumed the name Dr.
Alban. The album, One
Love, also contained three other songs that I heard (All thanks
to Vinay Sharma who was my only
source of cool shit in Std. XI, 1992-3. God bless him, he almost never bitched about me
overusing his double-deck -- which in those days was a hot commodity --
to copy his tapes onto blank ones. I stand on the shoulders of giants
like him)
Thoughts of Mata Oh Ah Eh led to thoughts of Sing
Hallelujah, which used to precede Mata... on the
compilation tape I had (I must admit I would always press the forward
button until I heard the woman yell Sing
Hallelujaaaaaah one final time). I then thought of Om We
Rembwe Ike, which I hadn't heard since the Ila Arun cover came out.
So I downloaded the whole album, and heard Om We... Damn,
whatever he says after om we rembwe
ike sounds like maro ghagro!
Maybe it's because I have heard the Ila Arun cover, and I am
automatically replacing one word with another, it is so close. No
wonder they covered it. And it was a fine cover, too. Vote For
Ghagra might not have had any appeal to it other than this one
song (oh, wait, was Nigodi from the same album? Or was it from
the Bichuda album?)
but this one song was not bad at all. Have a
listen and let me know if you agree!
I just realized that Dr. Alban made significant contributions to the
Indian entertainment scene. It's My Life was made into
Govinda's Meri Marzi (not a bad song, but not as good as Stop
That, the Apache Indian Chok There cover). I even remember
Sharon Prabhakar(or was it someone else?) singing the Dr.
Alban version during some awards show that year. Om We Rembwe Ike...
pay attention, douchebag, we just covered that one! The chorus line
from Mata Oh... was turned into "Aazaad aaya re, ooh ooh!
Khushiyaan laaya re, ooh ooh!" for Anil Kapoor, and the
instrumental part from the same Dr. Alban song... hell, the WHOLE
fucking song "inspired" A. R. Rehman's Muqabla. I mean, this
piece of shit song made him famous. And the Friday supplement of The
Hindu says, "A. R. Rehman: Creator, not imitator". You can creator,
not imitator my balls, very much. People think I have something
against ripoffs. No, I just have something against pseud hypocrites. By
the way, the difference between a dipshit like Rehman and someone like
Anu Malik: when Anu does it and then denies it, he's just so
ADORABLE!!!!! One of the most famous examples of this adorable
character is when he denies having copied Macarena, after
having turned it into TWO (not so) different songs! Chalte Chalte
Mila Ladka Diwana even includes a vocal admission by Anu Malik that
it is copied, but claims, and I quote, "[this song] is different,
you know, because it is funk, funk, funk, defunk!" Here's the intro clip
with that warning. In the outro, he then proceeds to CHALLENGE HIS
OWN CLAIM that the song is different. Here's the
outro. Anu Malik is just PRECIOUS!!
Coming back to the Denniz Pop shishya, the Swedish dentist
himself, Dr. Alban. I'm in a biergarten in Munich in the summer
of 2003, and I am introduced to this Swedish girl from Studentenstadt.
One of the first things I say to her, is, "So, Ana, were you ever a big
fan of Dr. Alban?".... She doesn't stop laughing for five minutes. Not
unlike the GRE computerized test, I try something of decreased
difficulty next: Roxette. She says she's not a big fan. Then, I kick it
UP three notches and ask her if she likes Whale. She's never heard of
them, turns out. Anyway, for the rest of the summer, I am known to the
Studentenstadt Trio as Dr. Alban. Better Dr. Alban than Me And My**, I
guess.
Before I even hint at what I'm going to complain about next, let me
first tell you about an episode of The Bournvita Quiz Contest.
Two students of a certain school are given a video clue: the very
famous "Run, Forrest, run!" scene from Forrest Gump,
and asked to identify the hero. One student immediately (and very
confidently) says, "Hmph! Chahlee Sheen!". I think the Tam phrase
pertinent to this situation would be gumm-goat, as in, inda
student quiz-ile gummu-nu goat aaittan. This episode is a
reminder of the assholes among us who do not know everything but are
confident that what they see around them definitely fits into
everything they know. I'm like that sometimes, but never with music or
movies, I hope! What does this story have to do with this page?
Patience, here it comes.
I also decided to find out what om
we rembwe ike meant by Googling it. Instead, I ended up with this link.
A few hoan-haar naujawaans reminiscing about those great days
of the early 90s. The author tells us of how he heard of Dr. Alban in
Moscow first, but then had a lot of trouble finding One Love
in the US because (surprise surprise) no one in America knows of Dr.
Alban's existence. That's because everything they don't know is clubbed
into the term "Eurotrash". Their loss, I say. Anyway, some other user
(let's say they have the alias STONECUTTER) left this comment for all
the others who were posting messages about Dr. Alban:
Um, I think you guys mean "Damon Albarn"?
Chahlee Sheen, indeed. Um, NO, STONECUTTER.
Alan and I used to have a term for people like Mister STONECUTTER here.
ILLITERATE GAY VIRUS. As Indians, I think most of us got the best of
both sides of the Atlantic in the early 90s. We could pick and choose.
I'm not so sure this is the case now (I am and will forever be a fan of
old school rap), but at least I was as interested in owning Pocketful
of Kryptonite, Keep The Faith, and Stunt
as I was in wanting to own The Wedding Album, No
Reservations, and Very. In fact, I
remember buying Automatic For The People, Very
and Keep The Faith on the very same Sunday in 1993. It
cost me a bunch of money, especially the Bon Jovi album which for some
reason was Rs. 75/- instead of the usual Rs. 60/-. Just because it had
75 minutes of music, or something like that. Turned out the extra Rs.
15/- was for a 10-minute version of Dry County. Arrgh.
Still, a trip to Adyar's New Music India in those days was the
shit.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Goddamn illiterate gay viruses. Go listen to Dr.
Alban.
** An obscure
reference, if there ever was one. If you don't remember Me And My
singing Dub-I-Dub or Lion Eddie, then never you mind.
Yeah, I like to pat myself on the back like that. In the words of the
golf course owner from Family Guy, "Big
whoop, wanna fight about it?"