For Amitabh Bhattacharya, Function Of Lyrics Is To Serve Script

Amitabh Bhattacharya is one of the most sought-after lyricists in current times.

Amitabh Bhattacharya is one of the most sought-after lyricists in current times.

However, the lyricist, who has shaped the contours of many chartbuster songs with his pen, has gone through a long arduous journey of fine-tuning his words, a process that initially he didn’t understand much.

As it happened over a period of time, Amitabh has learnt one important aspect of writing lyrics in showbiz, to not get overly attached to the work.

Amitabh recently appeared on The Music Podcast, and shared: “If something which is close to your heart gets changed or gets scrapped over a period of time, it does hurt. But, I realised that this is a process and I can’t get too attached to what I have written.”

He further mentioned: “Over a period of time, I understood and this my colleagues also told me that at the end of the day, we are doing commissioned work, whatever I write in the songs has to serve the script and add up to the larger narrative as a part of the filmmaking process. And this epiphany hit quite later because when earlier I worked with Amit Trivedi (the music composer) and his professional circle of Vikramaditya Motwane, Anurag Kashyap, everything that was written in the initial draft, it got green-lit.”

“But when I expanded and started working with Pritam and Vishal and Shekhar, I realised that it’s a process and there’s no escape from it. And now when I look back at it in hindsight, the process has only helped me and has taught me to got get too much attached to my work.”