The Making of "Tere Liye" (VEER-ZAARA) Video
20 May 2011
The music of Veer-Zaara was a unique endeavour probably for the first time ever in the world of music.
Many tunes made by Madan Mohanji over the years remained unused for many reasons… if it was a tune made for a specific song for a film, the film may have been shelved, the recording cancelled, the composer himself or the director may have opted for an alternative tune for situational reasons, and thus the tune with dummy words meant for the specific song remained unused.
Often, a tune struck Madanji, but had no immediate use and he wished to keep it for future use… he either just hummed the tune, played it on harmonium or piano, or just sang some dummy words as they struck him.
This was an ongoing process from 1950 till 1975, but in those days the facilities to record one's voice spontaneously did not easily exist. There were no easy recording devices, cassettes, portable mikes etc. So, often, if a tune struck Madanji when he was out, he would try and store it in his memory till he could somehow reach his music room and record it on a handy spool, most often, in the hurry, erasing an earlier lot. Thus, many such tunes have been lost.
The few that he managed to record were found on his spools, but not in good condition, some half erased, some overlapping each other, and more than anything else, the spools themselves had been damaged in the 3 decades since his death.
Veer-Zaara was the result of using 13 of such many tunes that were located, each composed in a different time span, under varied circumstances, each with a unique story.
Along with the Veer-Zaara audio CD, a special CD called the Making Of The Music was also released which featured excerpts of Madanji's original compositions, fused with the final recordings, to demonstrate the process of recreation to suit the requirement of Veer-Zaara situations. This CD was also included in the TERE BAGAIR set.
We have recently also added to the website the 13 original unedited compositions by Madanji as were initially found on his tapes, from which the 11 songs of VEER-ZAARA were recreated.
Tere Liye, the theme song of Veer-Zaara, became the song of the year 2004.
For the film Mausam (1975) which Madanji was composing in 1974, he came up with many alternative tunes for the sad and happy versions of the popular song, Dil Dhoondta Hai. One of these unused alternative tunes for the sad version, which was so haunting, was immediately selected to be the theme song of Veer-Zaara.
Madanji's mukhda and antra, as sung by him, to the lyrics of Dil Dhoondta Hai, were used, and new lyrics were written to the original meter as per the situational requirements of Veer-Zaara. The interludes used, including the alaap, were from other unused tunes of Madanji. Instruments used were modern, but his traditional sitar, strings and emotional nuances were predominant. The piano theme which became very popular was based on Madanji's melody.
Various dummy recordings were done and finally the song was recorded in the voices of Lataji and Roopkumar Rathod.
Lataji, who was already 75 years old by then, was ever so emotional during recording sessions. In fact some days recordings would be cancelled as she would break down in the studio seeing Madanji's portrait, hearing his haunting original tune in his voice repeatedly, and reliving the memorable days of their having created so much magic together.
The Tere Liye melody was a major part of the background score and played on various instruments. An instrumental version with piano, sitar, santoor and flute was also used in a special album of Veer-Zaara instrumentals.
View the Video of the Making of "Tere Liye" (VEER-ZAARA)
Also Check:
Watch the entire video capsule of "The Making of the Music of VEER-ZAARA", all songs, in two parts. Part 1 | Part 2
