Zee Jaipur Literature Festival: Marketing teams make bad lyrics popular

In the 2015 edition of the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival celebrated lyricist Javed Akhtar shared his views on the current scenario of lyrics in Hindi film songs.

"The lack of depth of situations in Hindi movies is hampering the quality of film songs in that medium," said renowned lyricist Javed Akhtar during his talk at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival on Wednesday.

When an audience member asked Akhtar what could be done about the quality of lyrics these days, he said that viewers would have to reject songs which were bad. When another viewer asked how bad and good lyrics were equally successful, Akhtar said that the marketing departments of films were responsible for the sale of badly-written songs.

"Marketing departments (of movies) with lower levels of aesthetics identify with bad lyrics. (They think) Munni badnaam hui? Acchha hua," said Akhtar, raising a ripple of laughter in the audience.

"Today, film songs are regarded as purely situational; but film lyricists of the yesteryears had a larger purpose behind their writings. Old film songs would give knowledge to people who did not read poetry and philosophy books," Akhtar said. Akhtar gave the instance of a popular song, "Kisi ke vaaste ho tere dil mein pyaar/ jeena isi ka naam hai," as a beautiful reminder of how human compassion was essential to humane existence.