A song and a dance about Money

I watched a well choreographed version of the song ‘Money Makes the World Go Round’ at Shiamak Davar’s ‘Summer Funk’ show recently. Was motivated enough to search for the original song on youtube; and then to search for more songs on the same topic. In case you think of any more, drop a comment and I will add it to this post.
Zen.

1. To start with, of course, ‘Money makes the world go round’ from ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, sung by Alan Cummings. Great song, I prefer this version to the Liza Minelli and Joel Gray version from ‘Cabaret’.

2. 'Money' by Pink Floyd, a Classic ! Sure you all know this song.
Here’s the link to the video, and this link also gives the lyrics.

3. ‘Mujhe mil jo jaaye thoda paisa’ – great song from a band called ‘Agosh’; did they have any other hits, they seemed to have vanished after this one.

Don’t miss the tongue-in-cheek allusions to the corporate world in this song; from ‘The Paisa Group – we change lives’ to the allusion to rich and successful actors in shampoo ads, the anti-pimple ad etc. The at-times-kooky subtitles running across the top of the screen add to the fun.

4. After ‘mujhe mil jo jaaye thoda paisa’, a similar refrain in English ‘If I was a rich man’ from the movie ‘Fiddler on the Roof’. An old favourite since childhood, it has lovely music; and I love the delicious detail in the imagined life the poor man could have had had he been rich, for instance, the wife developing a ‘proper’ (?!) double chin or building a staircase going nowhere ‘just for show’.

Right at the outset, he conversationally poses this question to God (or maybe fate), “so what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune ?”

And then this is restated in the end of the song as :
“Lord, who made the Lion and the Lamb
You decreed I should be what I am
Would it spoil some vast eternal plan
If I were a wealthy man ?”
Lovely !

5. ‘Teri Dhoom Har Kahin’ – a really old song from an old Dev Anand movie called ‘Kala Bazar’. The film is essentially about an honest man (Dev Anand) who enters the black marketing business because he cannot make money through honest means. Sung by Kishore Kumar, the lyrics proclaim ‘teri dhoom har kahin, tujhsa yaar koi nahin, humko tho pyaare, tu sabse pyaaraa’.

Don’t you just love the irony in the stanza which goes ‘Daulat ka mazhab chalaake.....Hum ek mandir banaake....Poojengey tujhko bithaake’, especially the chanting after each line !

6. ‘Sabse Bada Rupaiyya’ from 'Bluffmaster' – cool Abhishek, catchy tune, enjoyable song.

An ‘inspired’ song, the original was sung by Rafisaab with the lyrics ‘Baap bhala na bhaiyya, Sabse Bhala Rupaiyya’; a later adaptation, sung by Mehmood in a song with Vinod Mehra and Moushumi Chatterji, is clearly recognisable as the ‘Bluffmaster song.

7. ‘Money money money’ by ABBA
This link also has the lyrics in the info section, and here is the video of the song from the movie ‘Mamma Mia! The Movie’.

8. ‘Money for Nothing’ – Dire Straits


9. ‘Paisa paisa’ from the recent movie ‘De Dana Dan’ – not a song I like very much, but in small doses it is quite funny.

10. A famous hit rap song in the 90s by Wu Tang Clan, ‘
Cash Rules Everything Around Me – C.R.E.A.M’ . Can’t say I like the song much, but it fits the theme of this post