Past Melodies: A look-back at the music of Sholay and what continues to make it timeless

With music that’s often cheerful, raunchy, folksy and fun, amid gun fights, the swagger and scare of Gabbar Singh, Basanti’s chatter, Veeru’s comic bluster, this aching melody gives nuance to this dacoit film by Salim-Javed that released amid the political unrest of the Emergency in 1975.

The music of Sholay, including a meticulous background score, with Burman and Anand Bakshi at the helm, for 50 years now, has managed to etch certain scenes and songs in our memory. Be it the menacing, creepy moan of the cello during Gabbar’s entry with his unforgettable line, “Kitne aadmi the?” or the wail of the sarangi as Thakur walks past the corpses of his family or the return of the harmonica tune as a background to moments before Jai’s death — the score pulsates on the screen, binding the iconic film that Sholay has become.

Leading this is the opening title track that opens with ghazal singer Bhupinder Singh playing the guitar with Burman’s band fixture Kersi Lord, just as two men ride on horseback, a reminder of American Westerns. This is followed by a dramatic trumpet entering the scene, building up the adventure that’s to come. The piece was often played in Burman’s live concerts with his complete orchestra.

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The soundtrack has also been smartly tailored — a seven-track album that’s the pulse of the film, holding it together, providing it with colour and texture. Ye dosti, the friendship song, sung by Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey, is at the heart of it all, throbbing with life, happiness and possibility. But the masterstroke by Bakshi and Burman is that the same energetic piece picturised on Jai and Veeru in their now memorable motorcycle-sidecars, when slowed down, becomes a mournful background to the end of their friendship. The same lines that created camaraderie — Todenge dum magar tera saath na chhodenge — in Kumar’s voice, become heartbreaking when Jai is killed by Gabbar’s men.

Burman’s graph goes from comic to violent to dramatic to happy to absolutely sad. There are the playful Koi haseena jab and the fun Holi ke din, the latter going to a crescendo before Gabbar attacks the village, making it a significant mid-point. Then there is Gabbar’s cruel demand, where Basanti (Hema Malini) is to dance at gunpoint for Veeru’s life. Bakshi wrote Haan jab tak hai jaan that is danced through fatigue, humiliation and agony on broken glass by Basanti.

And how can one forget the sultry Mehbooba Mehbooba, the item song, where Burman blew into beer bottles to create the opening rhythm pattern and sang in his gravelly voice. Like Jab tak hai jaan, this is also not a Burman original. Cabaret queen Helen commands these five minutes with her sensuous moves while entertaining the gang.The Middle Eastern touches to it, including the actual composition, were directly lifted from Say you love me by the Greek-Egyptian musician Demis Roussos. Sippy and his first wife Geeta had heard the song in London and asked for it to be adapted by Burman, who took the tune and turned it into a classic.

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What got chopped from the film, however, was a qawwali sung by Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Bhupinder and Anand Bakshi. It could have been Bakshi’s debut as a singer. In the original script, there was a four-way qawwali competition that Akhtar was very keen on. But because of the length of the film already exceeding three hours, Chand sa koi chehra, which was picturised on Soorma Bhopali (Jagdeep), never made it to the final cut of the film.

Sholay, 50 years later, remains a cultural landmark. As for its music — soundtrack and score — it is still so intertwined with its characters and plot, making it the heart of this cinematic legend, just like its dialogues, which continue to make it timeless.