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‘Sugar Baby’ to ‘Kutti Story’: What’s With All The English Lyrics In Tamil Songs?
Can a 'Yaakai Thiri', a party song written completely in Tamil, be recreated today? Lyricists and musicians weigh in on the inclusion of English lyrics in Tamil songs.
If one were to go English-spotting in Tamil film songs today, it’s perhaps fair to say that it wouldn’t be a hard exercise. From potent rap (“I couldn't buy my daughter lunch. Now I'm bout to take my mamma house shopping after brunch. A bunch of mo**** f***** undercover swine that's trying to slide. Inside this culture that we fought for, flipped and built into empires,” writes Sri Lanka-born Canadian rapper SVDP in Sarpatta Parambarai’s ‘Neeye Oli’) to hummable every day anthems (“Design design ah problems will come and go, konjam chill pannu maapi,” writes Arunraja Kamaraj in Master’s ‘Kutti Story’), the language has inched its way into the Tamil cinema landscape. But this has also prompted an internet conversation: How much English is too much English?
This shift is a natural extension of who we are, says musician Shakthisree Gopalan. “We are all from what I fondly like to refer to as the paneer tikka pizza generation. If we had to make an urban film set in a city, don't you think it would be an incorrect representation if they were only speaking in the vernacular? Obviously for a period film it's different. But it needs to bear relevance to the context.”
Lyrics are an extension of a film’s character, just like dialogue, she notes. “If you take ‘Udhungada Sangu, Tamil is my mother tongue. I'm single and I'm young-u,’ it makes sense. This is how we talk to friends in the city.”
Vishnu Edavan quotes veteran lyricist Vaali as the biggest patron of this trend. “If we don't use the language you speak, you might not sing the song in real life. That was his philosophy,” says Edavan, who has written songs including ‘Badass’ from Leo and the Vikram title track (both Lokesh Kanagaraj films), notes that perhaps 90 per cent of the songs today use the language to denote its everyday usage in our vocabulary, and not just to become viral.
“Ani (Anirudh Ravichander) bro coined the term ‘Badass’, and usually when composers make songs, they have phrases in mind. And Lokesh anna came up with ‘Leo Das is a Badass’. So I just added a 'ma' to make it colloquial. We have never written a song thinking we need to add an English word to it.”
While a ‘Badass’ suits the vibe of a film like Leo, a line like ‘Nayagan Meendum Varaan’ goes with Vikram. “Now, ‘He’ll come back’ will never be a replacement for ‘Nayakan Meendum Vaaran’, I never had that thought,” he adds with a smile.
Lyricist Arunraja Kamaraj believes some lyrics often carve their own space in a song. Hours before he reached Anirudh’s studio to write ‘Kutti Story’, Kamaraj’s car met with an accident.
“At 3pm, our car got into an accident. The car was damaged, but my driver and I came out unscathed. We then took another car and listened to the song fully, and reached the studio. At that time, the line 'life is very short nanba' made perfect sense,” he recalls. The song, which was released during the thick of the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, proved to be a balm for homebound listeners.
“A nice thing finds its own space, and that is what I believe. There have been many musically intelligent and poetic songs, but why do such songs go big? Because audiences can connect to it with their soul,” he says, pointing out that the sandham or prosody is an important part of any song.
Gopalan, who recently composed for Netflix cricket drama Test, explains that the language is sometimes used as an obvious choice to bring out a flavour. For her song, Arena, sung by Yogi B, Gopalan wanted most of it to be in English, but the hook to be in Tamil. “Every time the story cut to the stadium, I wanted something that would be like the spirit of the game. We're used to Harsha Bhogle's commentary, and only recently has vernacular commentary become popular. I wanted something like Eminem's ‘8 Mile’ track, with that energy. And on top of that, when you add ‘Muyarchisei vendru vaa veera,’ we're saying that this batsman is from Madras and why it matters. But this doesn't come with an instruction manual.”
Decorating Tamil songs with English is hardly a new phenomenon, though: AR Rahman registered the trend in popular culture with ‘Take It Easy Urvasi’ in 1994, and Anirudh did with his crossover sensation ‘Why This Kolaveri Di’ in 2011. But lyricists like Pattukkottai Kalyanasundaram and Kannadasan have been doing it for years in their time, points out lyricist Madhan Karky.
But things, somehow, are different today. “People between 10 and 20 years of age consume the most music. People above 35 years usually have AR Rahman or Raaja sir playlists. And people with MSV playlists have come down.” The curiosity surrounding the language that came naturally to the millennial Tamil-speaking generation is also missing today, Karky believes.
“When I wrote ‘Ennamo Yeadho’ for KV Anand sir's Ko, I wrote a line called 'Kuviyamila Oru Katchi Pezhai' (translates to "a display box that is out of focus"). When I wrote it, KV Anand sir immediately accepted it, even though ADs thought people wouldn't accept it. When the song came out, listeners started finding out what it meant and asked me many questions. At that period, there were still people who had an interest in Tamil and were curious to know about the language. The likes of Na Muthukumar, Pa Vijay, Palani Bharathi, Thamarai and Kabilan brought out a variety of Tamil into lyrics. That generation spoke a lot of Tamil and a little English.”
While Karky has peppered Tamil songs with English, such as ‘Selfie Pulla’ from Kaththi (2014), and ‘Google Google’ from Thuppakki (2012), he brings Tamil back to focus after the hook line. “If you ask me if this is a good trend, I'd say it's not. Even today, there are songs with incredible Tamil lyrics, but society doesn't have time to appreciate them.” But Karky doesn’t blame the makers. “Cinema is a purely commercial medium. We need to teach students to appreciate Tamil and make them learn and write the language. But without addressing the root, we're commenting on an end product, which is cinema. There is no problem in the end product.”
If we have a concern, why only look at songs? asks Kamaraj. “Do schools teach Tamil? Mother tongue is the most important. Without that, it is difficult to think metaphorically. Do we have to voice that? Yes. At the same time, we can't force a language on anyone.”
Indian-American artist Shuba, who wrote Thug Life’s ‘Sugar Baby’, along with Siva Ananth and AR Rahman, appreciates the respect that Tamil Nadu holds for its language. “I appreciate it because it's not trying to be something it's not. It can be inauthentically done, like sometimes when people try to use English just because it's cool, it doesn't sound right.” But when done right, the usage of English makes a song and a film accessible, she agrees. Speaking about writing the flirty ‘Sugar Baby’, she says, “I didn't have too much context. I had to create a scenario in my head where it's the flirty title song of the phrase sugar daddy/sugar baby. It could be very explicit or be a play on words.”
The effort to retain Tamil in songs is high, but the reach is another story. “Take a song like ‘Yaakai Thiri' from Aayutha Ezhuthu (2004),” Karky urges. The song was written by Mani Ratnam’s frequent collaborator, lyricist Vairamuthu. “If there were a situation like that to write a song today, they would never let us write in Tamil. Recently, someone asked me to write a song set at a pub, so I wrote a song using party terminology in Tamil, but they told me no one would understand it. And told me to write it in English that no one will understand. So I am forced to rewrite the song with English and Tamil.”
But there are times a lyricist can also request changes in the brief. “When Rajamouli told me to keep the Siva song ('Siva Sivaya Potri) from Baahubali (2015) in Sanskrit, I told him we can try in Tamil. They didn't want Tamil there, but he understood my query, and it worked. It became the most heard song from the Tamil album.”