Why This Kolaveri Di

Why This Kolaveri Di ( English / Tamil roughly: "Why this murderous rage, girl?") Is an Indian film song. It comes from the Tamil film 3 and is interpreted by the actor and singer Dhanush . The song has a simple and very catchy melody, the tragicomic text is written in a mixed language of broken English and Tamil and tells of the heartache of a rejected man. Why This Kolaveri Di was published prematurely on the Internet before the film was released in November 2011 and quickly developed into a pop culture phenomenonin India. The song wasviewed ten million timeson the Internet platform YouTube in the first two weeks after its publication and distributed on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter . The Indian media reported extensively on the success of Why This Kolaveri Di .

Emergence

The actor and singer Dhanush improvised the lyrics to Why This Kolaveri Di .

Why This Kolaveri Di is a movie song from the Tamil film 3 , but was already distributed on the Internet before the film was released. The main roles in the film are played by the actor Dhanush and the actress Shruti Haasan , daughter of the film star Kamal Haasan . 3 is the directorial debut of Dhanush's wife Aishwarya Dhanush , who is in turn the daughter of the film star Rajinikanth . The melody for Why This Kolaveri Di was composed by 21-year-old debutant Anirudh Ravichander , the song is sung by actor Dhanush.

Why This Kolaveri Di was created largely through improvisation . Composer Anirudh claims that director Aishwarya requested a light and funny song about unfulfilled love, whereupon he developed the main melody within five to ten minutes. In the recording studio, Dhanush improvised to the melody and spontaneously sang the line of text "Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di" . The rest of the text was created in a spontaneous process within twenty minutes. Originally, the improvised text was only intended as a placeholder and was not intended for the film.

A raw version of Why This Kolaveri Di was leaked on the Internet in November 2011 . As a result, the producers decided to prematurely publish the song on the Internet. A music video was produced showing the singer Dhanush, the composer Anirudh, the actress Shruti Haasan, the director Aishwarya and the sound engineer Sivakumar producing the song in the recording studio. On November 16, the record company Sony Music India, which holds the rights to the song, released the video for Why This Kolaveri Di on the video platform YouTube . The deputy director of Sony Music India said the company had planned a viral marketing campaign and was betting on distributing the video on the Internet. The soundtrack for film 3 including the song Why This Kolaveri Di was released on December 23rd.

Film 3 was released on March 30, 2012. For the film, Why This Kolaveri Di was filmed in a comedic dance sequence on Marina Beach in Chennai .

text

Why This Kolaveri Di is a tragic-comic love song that tells in simple sentences about the heartache of a young man who has been rejected by the woman he loves. The man sings about a "girl with white skin" ( White skin-u girl-u girl-u , a light complexion is considered an ideal of beauty), but whose heart is black ( Girl-u heart-u black-u ). Their eyes met ( Eyes-u eyes-u meet-u meet-u ), but now his future is dark ( My future-u dark-u ). The man longs for the woman back, believes he is already dying and asks himself how she can be happy in this situation ( I want you here now-u, God-u I am dying now-u, she is happy how- u ). The man's self-pity culminates in the refrain in the question "Why this murderous rage, girl?" ( Why this kolaveri di ). In addition to the actual lyrics of the song, the improvised song contains numerous comments from the singer to the composer on the keyboard ( "Rhythm correct. Maintain, please" , "The rhythm is good. Please hold").

The text of Why This Kolaveri Di is written in a mixed language of broken English and Tamil , which is sometimes ironically referred to as " Tanglish ". With the exception of the key word kolaveri and the singer's remarks , all words in the song are English, but the phonetics and grammar of the text are heavily influenced by Tamil. In the pronunciation, the auxiliary vowel -u [ ɯ ] is conspicuous , which, as in Tamil, is added to words that end with a consonant to facilitate pronunciation . The syntax is rudimentary ( "Girl-u heart-u black-u" for "The girl's heart is black" , "The girl's heart is black ") and clearly influenced by Tamil ( "She is happy how-u" for " How can she be happy ” ,“ How can she be happy ? ”). The Tamil influence on grammar goes so far that Tamil suffixes are used with English words, such as the locative suffix -la in "Distance-la moon-u" ("In the distance [shines] the moon"). When Dhanush starts to sing the line Kai-la glass-u (Tamil for "a glass in hand"), the sound engineer reminds him to only sing in English ( "Only English!" ) And replaces it the Tamil word kai through the English hand ( "Hand-la glass-u, glass-la scotch-u, eyes-u full-aa tear-u" , "In the hand a glass, in the glass a scotch , the eyes full Tears").

Some Tamil words and slang terms in the lyrics are not easily understood by non-Tamils. The Tamil word kolaveri ( கொலைவெறி ), which occurs in the title and chorus of the song, literally means "murderous rage", but is often used in the slang phrase "En inda kolaveri" ( ஏன் இந்தக் கொலைவெறி , literally "why this murderous rage?") used. The particle di ( டி ) is a confidential form of address in Tamil that is used towards women. The title Why This Kolaveri Di can be freely translated as “Why do you hate me so, girl?”. At the beginning of the song, the singer Dhanush declares the piece as a soup song ( "Yo boys, I am sing song, soup song" , "Hey guys, I'm singing a song, a soup song "). Dhanush clarified doubts about the meaning of the word soup (actually “soup”) via Twitter : “Soup song na love failure song. [...] Doubt clear aa? " (" Soup song means a song about the failure of love. Doubt removed? ").

reception

Dhanush and composer Anirudh Ravichander receive a prize for 3 at the 2013 Filmfare Awards South .

Why this Kolaveri Di achieved tremendous popularity after its publication and quickly became an internet phenomenon . The video for Why This Kolaveri Di was posted on November 16, 2011 by Sony Music India on the YouTube video platform . The video had been viewed five million times by November 26th, and the 10 million mark was broken on November 30th. At the turn of the year 2011/2012 the number of calls was already 30 million. On November 21st , Why This Kolaveri Di became the main Indian trend on the micro-blogging service Twitter . The link to the video was distributed 8.2 million times in less than a week on the Facebook social network . As the first Tamil film song, Why This Kolaveri Di was broadcast across India by radio stations and the music television station MTV India.

The success of Why This Kolaveri Di was followed by a great response in the Indian press. Outside India, Why This Kolaveri Di was featured in Time magazine and was named song of the year by CNN . In addition to the catchy tune of the melody, the success of the song is also attributed to its originality. The text, bordering on absurdity, makes for comedy, but at the same time addresses the fear of failure of young men. With his antihero role in the song, actor Dhanush underlines his image as the “boy next door” and ensures that his fans can identify with him. The language of the song speaks primarily to the English-speaking urban youth. Why This Kolaveri Di embodies a trend in Tamil film songs towards colloquial texts with anglicisms . The broken “Tanglish” gives the song a Tamil flavor, but also makes it accessible to non-Tamils.

The Turkish interpreter Sertab Erener covered Why This Kolaveri Di on her studio album Sade under the title Söz . On the Internet, numerous imitations and parodies have appeared of the song, including with a female voice, in Tamil, on versions of Hindi and Punjabi in the Bhangra style. A Tamil “counter-version” from Jaffna criticizes the mishmash of languages in Why This Kolaveri Di and asks in the diction of Tamil cultural nationalism: “Why this murderous hatred of the Tamil language? [...] The Tamil language is older than stone and sand. If you are tamil you should have a little self-respect ”.

Critics have accused Why This Kolaveri Di of a misogynous tendency. The song only blames the woman for the failure of the romance. Like many other Tamil film songs, the song thus underpins the dominant male perspective in matters of love. The singer Dhanush denied the criticism in a television interview. After all, he sang of a “white skin-u girl-u girl-u” and not of “girls-u girls-u” , meaning a specific woman in the film and not women in general. In any case, he emphasizes, Why This Kolaveri Di shouldn't be taken too seriously, it's just a “silly song”.