Why This Kolaveri Di – Tanglish Song Goes Viral

Via Sayy’s 365, I heard this lovely Tamil song. It’s an unimposing song, sung in mixed English and Tamil, telling a simple story, nice slouchy beat, and a fun, real video. Sayy comments that’s it’s gotten over 3 million views in a week. I understand why.

It’s beautiful and fun. The drum beat alone is enough to carry anything, but it’s got a haunting refrain and really sweet lyrics. And random hot girls in the studio, but not lolling around looking retarded and fake. It’s all really real. Here’s a lyric:

“White skin-a girl-a girl-a, Girl-a heart-a black-a”

My favorite

“Yo boys i am sing song, soup song, flop song”

also

“RRRhythm correct”

People mix Tamil (and any language) all the time, but this singer (Dhanush) mixes them un-self consciously. This is called Tanglish according to the Times Of India.

I also love Indian actors. I really can’t tell them from civilians based on look, it’s all charisma. When I saw this I thought it was a producer or something, but I liked him. Turns out Dhanush is a pretty jacked up star.

It’s really great. More music should be like this, honest, live, and fun. One question though. What does kolaveri mean?

14 Comments

  1. I couldn’t tell from the song whether this was the intended meaning or not but usually, if you said “Kola veri” then it would mean something like “killing rage” where “veri” is pretty similar to the Sinhalese word “viyaruwa”. But I don’t know if “kolaveri” (they always put it as a single word where the song is concerned …) is a slang word or if it has some other meaning …

  2. Hurrah For putting up the tamil/ english song.
    Its a huge hit and gone viral crazy. Kolaveri means killing rage..

  4. The random hot girls aren’t random at all. One of them is Shruti Hassan – daughter of Kamal Hassan (almost as cool as Rajnikanth). She’s an actor/singer/composer. Just FYI.

  5. Oh and the other chick IS Rajnikanth’s daughter.

  6. jen is right.. And Dhanush is Rajinikanth’s Son in Law..
    If a tiger had sex with a tornado and then their tiger-nado baby got married to an earthquake, their offspring would be Rajinikanth, and his son in law is Dhanush..
    I selectively watch bit of Tamil movies since I understand Tamil quite well.. But I don’t normally watch Dhanush’s movies..
    This is Danush in a Tamil Movie..
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrJbvxY25LE

    On a different note, I don’t watch Hindi simply coz I don’t understand, I don’t like sub-titles.. They don’t give you the real feeling..

  7. Soooop-u song-u, song-u, song-u……….. I like how he says yumpty life-u

  8. Google ‘Kolaveri Di English Translation’ and there’s a lot of them popping up including a wikipedia page. It’s a girl mad at boy, boy sings sad song type situ the way I read it. I can just imagine a scene where some posh English speaking pretty girl is brushing off this poor no-English street smart kid at some uni. xD

    The two girls aren’t random. Shruti Hassan is the female lead of the movie ‘3’ (2012) that the song is taken from. Dhanush is the male lead. Aishwarya Rajinikanth is the director. It’s in the youtube description too i think.

    Look at me talking like I’ve known this stuff for years.

  9. I will not miss this opportunity to go hipster on you guys. I’ve been a huge Dhanush fan for a while now. He won a national award last year for ‘Aadukalam’ which is about rooster fights. My favorite movies of his are ‘Pudapettai’ which is set in the political mafia and ‘Polladhavan’ which is loosly based on bicycle theives. All three are really good tamil movies.

  11. Haha !

    Yes Rajnikanths daughter, aishwarya is danushs wife. Info added by the others I see.

    Added info shruthi (kamals daughter) is a pop star with a great voice.

  13. Kolavery is not a single word. It is made up of KOLAI meaning murder and VERY meaning rage–
    More than the words it is the music that is haunting. Of course Tanglish has added to the fascination Veevip Sarathy

  14. Pingback: indi.ca » Electric Peacock Was Fun

Comments are closed.