“Jaana” is my latest song.
You can find it at: https://youtu.be/038EymkvG2U?si=nUr4RMfkRuREPiAL
It went live at 1:04 A.M. on March 26, 2023 E.S.T.
Earlier this week, I posted a Mini Lyric named “Janu, Tu Jaane Naa” on HitaRocks! and my music Insta page. I wrote it months ago back when I was with He Who Shall Not Be Named — and no, I’m not talking about Voldemort.
And yeah, that relationship went to fuck itself in hell (no ill will towards him, life happens), but so what? Here’s something about the arts that everyone should know:
It’s just how artist brain works. It’s how it should work.
You hone in on whatever particular feeling you need to feel and let that guide you.
And that’s what I did for “Jaana”. Because why let perfectly good lyrics go to waste?
And as I did for “Naa Anuragam”, here’s a translation of my Hindi and Telugu song into English:
Before all else, I’ll say I actively ignored the differentiation of male- and female-describing Hindi adjectives (“a” endings = male; “i” endings = female… usually) because we live in a world where gender is not binary and I don’t appreciate gender differentiating adjectives. ”Til this day when people ask me if I know Hindi I respond “Mein Hindi only kuch kuch janta hoon”. Not because I identify as a man— I don’t —but because I don’t care that “janta” is “meant for describing men”. So rather than focusing on whether they described my subjects, I focused on whether “mera” or “meri” sounded better. Grammar rules are meant to be broken when (A) they’re stupid and (B) there’s a good reason to, babes.
Now, the lyrics for this song aren’t nearly as ambiguous as the last one nor are they meant to be. But to understand the significance of them, you have to know the following: The source lyrics (the entirety of “Janu, Tu Jaane Naa” which hasn’t been published in full nor will it ever be as far as I am concerned at the moment though I might publish just the original instrumentals without vocals… maybe… we’ll see. Anyways….) were fully in Hindi and there was a slight variation in the Hindi lyrics that makes all the difference. Here are the original lyrics with their translation:
The most obvious changes are that I cut a few lines “Mein deewana | -wana for you” and “Tere bina | Mere dil hai | Suna”. Let’s talk through that first.
I cut “Mein deewana | -wana for you” for two reasons:
- When I first realized the instrumental tracks I had just gathered together on SoundTrap were suitable for this song and I started to sing it, the beginning of that first stanza fit beautifully. But those last two lines didn’t. They sounded off.
- Then I decided I didn’t like them anymore. They felt… generic. At least, they felt generic in this context. So I ditched them rather than strain myself trying to fit them in.
I cut “Tere bina | Mera dil hai | Suna” because it felt wrong. Now with the tune. In meaning, it fundamentally felt wrong. A while ago I’d written “Live-For-Me Kind of Love” on MML. To a similar sentiment, I’ve come to believe love isn’t when you feel lost or empty without someone, it’s when you feel happy and heart-content with them. I’ve probably said it before— I can’t remember —but love isn’t being unable to live without someone, it’s wanting to be together. So I cut “Tere bina | Mera dil hai | Suna”.
The Telugu stanzas came in because… I don’t know. They weren’t pre-written like the Hindi ones. I was just listening to the music wondering what came after “Mein aur tum” now that I cut “Mein deewana | -wana for you”. It felt off to stop the stanza there. So I started humming and felt like singing in Telugu so I figured why not? Then I wanted to keep the Hindi/Telugu pattern so I inserted the fourth stanza (“Jaana, Jaana Jaana…”) between the “Tu meri” stanzas.
As for why I changed half the “Tu meri”s to “Mein teri”s, it’s because this isn’t about a one-sided love. This isn’t about one person longing after another. This is about two people letting each other into their world, becoming each other’s world. I also thought there were certain new connections made this way. Due to changing half the “Tu meri”s to “Mein teri”s, rather than each “Tu meri” line functioning as its own unit, each “Tu meri”+”Mein teri” pair functions as one unit in the lyrical pattern. By saying “Tu meri | Mausiqui” and “Mein teri | Mohabbatein” I’m equating music with love. By saying “Tu meri | Yaariyan” and “Mein teri | Yaadein yaadein” I’m equating friendship with making memories. By saying “Tu meri | Zindagi” and “Mein teri | Khushiyan hein”, I’m equating life with happiness. By saying “Tu meri | Dil ka ghar” and “Mein teri | Safar safar”, I’m equating home with travel. Here there’s a juxtaposition, an additional significance, that comes into that last pair, one that I feel reflects the majority of my relationships. The people I’m usually with function as someone stabilizing for me whereas I usually function to take them on an emotional roller-coaster and make them dizzy. The day I find a relationship in which there’s a balance in that, that’ll be the day I know I’ve found my ultimate partner in life.
Now, the biggest change (at least, it’s the biggest in my opinion) was changing “Janu” to “Jaana”. There were a lot of things that motivated this change… Most of it, subconscious. Most of it, for me to know and you to keep wondering and create your own conspiracy theories for. But primarily it was that this isn’t about He Who Shall Not Be Named anymore in spite of starting that way. It’s like how when we set out to write characters for our stories and each and every single one of has that notice on the Copyright page before the book starts or the credits screen before the movie starts saying (and imagine this in a high-pitched mocking tone) “This is purely a work of fiction and any and all resemblance to real people is a coincidence” which is an utter lie and we all know it. Every single thing we create was inspired by something pre-existing. But we take what exists and we manipulate it, adapt it, adopt it as our own, making it something… else. Different enough that any resemblance to the original inspiration while not coincidental becomes irrelevant.
This song is no longer about “Janu”. It’s about Jaana. Someone who’s the opposite of “jaane”, the opposite of knowing. Just as well, it’s not about me either.
