Finding Ya Mustafa, 62 years later

At some point, the world discovered Ya Mustafa and everyone went bananas and began creating covers with their own insane lyrics

Almost exactly one year ago, on April 10, the Mumbai police band, better known as Khaki Studio, posted a catchy instrumental on their YouTube page. The song, called Ya Mustafa, sounded instantly familiar. In a few bars I was right back in 1960, a skinny stripling of eight.

We were a band of pre-pubescent buddies in New Delhi’s Karol Bagh. Every evening we’d gather at Kanna’s house, about which my main memory is a massive record player, then known as a radiogram. 

From this emanated the latest and the greatest in the world of songs. This was where I met music for the first time.

Berlin Melody by Billy Vaughan and his orchestra. Lipstick on your collar, Connie Francis. Technique, Pat Boone. Multiplication, Bobby Darin. The Shadows, with their electrifying guitar instrumentals with exotic names like Apache, Fandango and Kon-Tiki.

Then there were unforgettable songs with incomprehensible words in strange languages, like Tintarella di Luna, something Italian about starlight and love.

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Thus finally we come to a capricious Egyptian melody starting with a weaving chorus singing words, probably Arabic, that sounded to my green ears like —Teri sesame sheri sesamo O mora chacha de pomelo Sheer gobbledygook, right? But sense doesn’t matter when you’re eight. The tune was magical, instantly addictive. And as the memories drifted back, like cirrus clouds, I remembered that there had been English words woven between the Arabic.

Allamahebak means ‘I love you so’.

I never want to let you go.

And later, in what must have been happen days in both cities —

From Damascus to Tehran, like a camel I have run.

The song was Ya Mustafa, composed by Mohamed Fawzi and featured in the 1961 Egyptian film El Hob Keda (That’s Love!). https://cutt.ly/P7eah5X. 

And it was the very melody the boys of Mumbai’s Khaki Studio had posted on YouTube. 

Suddenly I wanted to find out everything about it.

Mustafa, for those not in the know, is one of the many names of the prophet Muhammad, and means “the Chosen One”. If you search for it on Google, YouTube or Spotify, you’ll be inundated with hits. I have gamely ploughed through them all to track down the specific one that had enlivened my boyhood.

Be warned: songs about Mustafa rule in the desert kingdoms. The most haunting version with the same title, by Sami Yusuf, has a different melody and is a prayer to the divine. The tune and tempo I sought showed up first in a release by George Abdo, titled Raks Mustafa and even featuring a live belly dancer in the throbbing video version. https://cutt.ly/P7wHM4a

A slicker, punchier rendering came from Mezdeh, still exclusively in Arabic but titled Ruh Rahleh. It awaits you at https://cutt.ly/S7wYYZp. It is about a man called Mustafa, we are told, who has been away too long; they are begging him to come home. 

At this point, the world discovers Ya Mustafa and everyone goes bananas. Everything is up for grabs, starting with its words. Suddenly everyone was doing their own covers of the song, with their own insane lyrics.

One Magnifico releases a greasy version (https://cutt.ly/C7wJx8b) with these raunchy lines,   —

You like it when I tickle you with my moustache

And I like it when you say to me hush hush

Egypt’s Bob Azzam introduced silly French lyrics and the song became Europe’s #1 hit. Other languages quickly followed: Maltese, Flemish, English, German. You’ll find versions in jazz, the ‘60s surf sound, raï and even fusion with a sitar.

Turkey’s cover by Dario Moreno has a young woman telling her boyfriend: “Let’s get married and put an end to this; I have a child in my belly!”

In 1994, Bollywood discovered and instantly plagiarised Ya Mustafa in the film Aatish, with a no-longer-youthful Sanjay Dutt mouthing the lyrics.

The last nail in the coffin comes from British singer Clinton Ford, disguised as Sheik Ben Dhown and crooning: 

Just like a match, you set my heart on fire

But why oh why you leave me now with my desire?

It is my misfortune that I still haven’t found my Ya Mustafa, the one in which a besotted Arab Romeo runs like a camel from Damascus to Tehran. It must be out there, somewhere in that great vinyl beyond. Perhaps you’ll send me the link.

I confess, with some regret, that last week, 62 years later, I did finally find the actual lyrics for nonsense Arabic that start the song. Turns out they are entirely French and entirely loony. A frisky Arabian playboy is singing to his paramour, under a studio moon and plywood props, yigal in hand, trying to tell her how much he loves her. Here are the French words that I had once mistaken for Arabic.

Cherie, je t’aime, cherie, je t’adore

Como la salsa de pomodoro.

The first line is easy enough. Darling, I love you, darling, I adore you. 

But how much does the Sheikh love her? Like a rose? Like the light of a thousand suns? Like the first bloom of spring?

Alas, no, as the second line ceremoniously reveals.

I love you like tomato ketchup.

You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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