Top Ten Songs by Sonu Nigam

Indian cinema (Bollywood) has many song and dance sequences integrated within the storyline of the films. Now although the actors are required to dance, most of them do not actually sing, instead they lip sync the words. Therefore, playback singers (as they are referred to) lend their voices in song for this purpose. Sonu Nigam is one such playback singer (and songwriter) who has sung somewhere close to 600 songs for approximately 200 films. The amazing thing with a select few singers, like Sonu, is that they have learned to impersonate the actors’ voices so closely that it seems like the actors are the ones doing the actual singing. This is not a small feat, as the singers do this for many actors. Sonu is hailed as perfectly impersonating Shah Rukh Khan’s voice.

Sonu Nigam also has several non-film albums to his credit in which he has composed and sung the music and I love the music from them too. But for this article, I have chosen only those songs that appear within films. The translation from Hindi into English does take some of the beauty away but you can still get the essence of the lyrics. The film titles are in bold type.

1. Suraj Hua Maddham (The Sun Dims into Twilight) from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Ghum (Sometimes Laughter, Sometimes Sorrow) is my all-time favorite filmi song, which makes it my favorite Sonu Nigam song too. The haunting melody, violins, flutes, dholak and the most complex instrument of all, the ethereal human voices of Sonu and Alka Yagnik make this love ballad simply exquisite. The soulful words of a first love picturized on Shah Rukh Khan (Rahul) and Kajol (Anjali) as they confess their love for one another and imagine what their lives would be like if they were to get married is truly amazing. “This is a beautiful moment, everything is changing. The dreams, which are spilling over into reality. I kept waiting; the earth began to move. This heart lurched, my breath stopped. Is this my very first love? The ocean thirsted; the night awoke. In the heart of the flame, fire sparked to life.”