Pritam Breaks Down How He Composes For Script And Characters, Not Actors

MUMBAI (IANS)- Music composer Pritam, whose original soundtrack for ‘Metro…In Dino’ has garnered attention, sharing that he approaches songwriting by prioritizing the script and characters over how a song might visually appear on Bollywood actors.

The music composer explained that his responsibility is to do justice to the narrative and its characters, rather than considering the on-screen representation or an actor’s portrayal.

 “It is the hero. It is the protagonist who is important. It’s the story. It’s the character. ‘Haanikaarak Bapu’ was meant for Geeta and Babita (‘Dangal’) when they were young. So, there shouldn’t have been a glimpse of Aamir Khan in it. I’ll give you a simple example. Ranbir Kapoor in ‘Barfi’ and Ranbir Kapoor in ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’. So I was working with Ranbir Kapoor in parallel, these two films were being made around the same time,” he said.

He added, “‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ and ‘Jagga Jasoos’ were also overlapping. But, I was not making music for Ranbir Kapoor, I was making for those characters. He’s not the same shade. So any artist getting into a project, it is the story which sparks it. It is not the actor. You don’t make movies for Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan or Ranbir Kapoor or Ranbir Singh. You make music for the character.”

Earlier, Pritam had revealed that the cult-classic song ‘Channa Mereya’ was initially composed for the Salman Khan-starrer ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, not ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’.

‘Channa Mereya’ is a modern heartbreak anthem, boasting a loyal following with over 275 million streams on Spotify and daily streams clocking 200,000. This might not have been the case had director Kabir Khan selected the melody for ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ from Munni’s point of view.

 “For the same situation of ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, I made ‘Channa Mereya’. It got bounced from ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, and it went to ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’,” he said, adding that the chorus was the same, but the lyrics were different.