It's called "Tunak Tunak Tun," a Punjabi-Pop song by Jon Lovitz-lookalike and Indian music star Daler Mehndi [wiki]. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
I got the lyrics (and the crazy video) from Stuff on Fire:
Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Da Da Da (5x)
Sweetheart, the strings of the instrument play, Listen to what the heart says, Come and love me (4x)
Sweetheart…
Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Da Da Da (4x)
The world is a colorful place, It’s not good nor bad (4x)
Listen friends the iktaara(1) says, Mehndi’s friends
Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Da Da Da (4x)* * * crazy dancing * * *
Sweetheart, come smile with me sometimes, My heart’s keeper (lover) look, This body is not under your or my control (4x)
Sweetheart…
Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Da Da Da (4x)
Sweetheart, you are moon and I am Chakor(2), There no one like us, Our threads of life is in the hands of god (4x)
Sweetheart…
Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Da Da Da (4x)
The world is a colorful place, It’s not good nor bad (4x)
Listen friends the iktaara(1) says, Mehndi’s friendsTunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Tunk Tunk Tun Da Da Da (4x)
And of course, it's already parodied mercilessly:
Update 11/15/06: There's even a Daler action figure - Thanks özi!
This is not his first album. I confused this song with his breakout album 'Bolo Ta Ra Ra'. Needless to say, I am not a big fan of Bhangra type music.
A lot of North Indians are into bhangra, however, to the extent that 'Bhangra Night's are popular wherever there is a sizeable Punjabi/North Indian population in US universities.
I think too much is being made of this. Daler has not released an album for over two years now, and of late there were some allegations that he was involved, albeit indirectly, in trafficking illegal immigrants into Canada. Personally, I think his career's over.
Daler Mehndi is NOT Bollywood. There is a music scene in India that is completely independent of Bollywood, though most music in India invariably comes from Bollywood, which churns out a whopping 3000 songs every year, many of them utter crap.
Daler Mehndi took India by storm with this song. One couldn't get into a rickshaw or a cab that wasn't playing it. But most people may have never seen the video. India got big on music videos only after they got smoking hot scantily clad women into them. Fair enough.
Daler Mehndi is what I'd call a folk artiste, specifically a Punjabi folk artiste. Songs revolve around Life, God, Love and other things nice and good.
This video is a low-budget video, considering how it's from his first album, and in the 90s, music independent of Bollywood would be hard pressed to find distributors and such. Now you have Sony Music pumping money and everything.
The tune is feet-tapping, the lyrics are feel-good, and I don't see what else one could ask from a song. As far as parodies go, all publicity is good publicity. :-D
cheers,
Onkar.
The parody is just lame, and yeah, the people certainly looked familiar with the words. The people in the parody didn't look like white Americans to me, so I doubt you could call it racism. I thought it was somebody in that same culture mocking the song.
I doubt that it was the intention of Neatorama to insult or mock Daler Mehndi or his video with this post. It's called "Indescribably Weird" in the title, but that's only a bad thing if you take it that way. Some of us LOVE to find things that are weird. Indescribably weird is even better. That was a great video, and if wasn't for Neatorama there's no telling when I might have seen it.
And for a weird American video, check out Devo's "Whip It".
As for the college students, yeah, they came across to me at first as idiots. However, the longer I watched it, it looked to me like they were having fun as opposed to just making fun. At least the main guy looks as though he's listened to the song enough to be able to mouth many of the words.