25th April 1996
A month after releasing our new and perhaps first hit single
“Jazba-e-Junoon”, I was looking at the music charts and found out that our
audience reacted to this song with triumph, hearing rumors that it may become
the new national song of Pakistan and is competing with other pieces as the
signature song for the upcoming Cricket World Cup this year. Wow! I haven’t
seen this much success since the release of “Dil Dil Pakistan” back in 1987,
when I was part of Vital Signs. After joining “Junoon” (my new band), I couldn’t
see much to relish, but now I guess we’re able to kick start our opening album
with what seems to be a truly admired track from the people’s perspectives. The
song itself focuses towards the independence of Pakistan, highlighting the
great accomplishments of those who risked their lives in the past to provide us
with our own land, easing our way of living. We wanted to address the fact
that, even though this was quite some time ago (in fact 48 years ago), we
should never lose our passion for our country and always look towards it in a
positive manner, emphasizing the consequence of this freedom and liberty with
lines like “Mehnat apni ho gi, Pehchan kabhi na bhoolo” (Our Hard work will be
ours, and our identity, never forget this), and “Apna ghar, Apni sar zameen,
Sab kuch hai, Bas yaheen” (Our home, our own land, everything we need is here.).
Jazba-e-Junoon (with lyrics)
14th Dec 2002
Dear Diary, as I rose from my bed in the morning, I was enlightened
with some pleasing news in the form of an invitation from the BBC, as it called
upon me and my former band, Vital Signs, to come and celebrate the top ten
songs of the world, which included our hit single “Dil Dil Pakistan”. I couldn’t
be much more proud of our contribution to this milestone, as I look back on the
first few days of development of “Dil Dil Pakistan”. It was a warm morning in the
busy city of Islamabad, where I sat with the rest of the gang, as we pondered onwards,
after weeks of planning and searching for inspiration, our main goal being to
create some sort of love song to add to our only album Vital Signs 1, when it
hit me. I said “Why not forget about love and look towards a more patriotic theme?”,
and Junaid replied “that’s a good idea, since we haven’t had any luck with love…”,
which is how the song came in. That night I sat with my keyboard, writing what
ended up to be the 3rd most known song worldwide, according to BBC.
It just took a couple of practice sessions and we were ready for our first
music video shooting in the outskirts of Islamabad, at the gorgeous Murree Hills.
It was from that day forward that we became one of the most well-known bands in
region, yet I never knew we were this good… We mainly wanted to express our
love and passion for our home country during the time, as the words “Dil Dil
Pakistan” (literally meaning Heart Heart Pakistan) were able to depict this. Another
significant reason for the upbringing of the title was the centered rivalry
between president Zia and musicians at the time. He looked to remove all
instances of music and dance from the country as he thought Pakistan was influencing
too much material from the western world, without realizing that this situation
was present worldwide! Anyways, I’m really pumped up after hearing about this
achievement and can’t wait to regroup with the guys after some time now. I’m
sure they’d be astonished at how we progressed from 15th place, back
in 1995, 8 years after the song released, to 3rd. What a day its
truly been…
Dil Dil Pakistan (with lyrics)
Ali, I enjoyed reading this and felt as though I have been directly inside of this person's head. I would say that these diary entries show a good understanding of both the topic and text it refers to. The task chosen is very appropriate since our unit deals with lyrics and their meaning to impact people. I feel that the conventions, being first person and writing in first person, have been done quite well. Maybe try to replicate even more of how this person would speak while watching interviews of this chosen artist. The word usage I have to say was good, but seemed very sophisticated.
ReplyDeleteThese diary entries were very well done. How you described the writer's thoughts and using examples from the lyrics to back up your topic was very good. To improve on this, i say you would need to research a bit more on the artist and the way he talks, to more authentically replicate the way his speech. (Maybe like some jargon or slang used in his country)
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