Brigade Road in ‘69: The Nostalgia Trap of a Fake Bangalore Anthem

What happens when the longing for “the good old days” meets the age of artificial intelligence? A recent viral (and fake) ‘Brigade Road in ‘69’ song took Bengaluru’s WhatsApp groups by storm. This nostalgia trap exposed the critical need for digital skepticism, highlighting that people will eagerly embrace anything that reminds them of the good old days, often without bothering to fact-check. 

Sometime in May, WhatsApp groups in Bengaluru have been abuzz over a song.

Shared and reshared often, the melody has a lovely yesteryear vibe to it, but it’s the lyrics talking about Brigade Road in ‘69 that set people’s hearts aflutter. 

Or rather, those whose hearts still long for the days when it was Bangalore. The song talks about the favourite haunts in glamorous Cantonment, and sent listeners into rhapsodies of praise. But joy soon turned to confusion. “It’s not real; it’s AI,” denounced sharp-eared purists. 

Photo of Brigade Road in the 60s– Photo Courtesy: The Anglo Indian Community Facebook

Others fought back. It was sung by the late Dr Thomas Chandy, a well-known orthopaedic and musician, said a long forward describing its provenance. That itself was suspect (I have often heard him sing, but never this song), but there were those who refused to believe. While this theory was busted, yet another forward claimed the songwriter was Percy Philip, with again a similarly suspect long description. The singer was identified as a popular local singer. Yet again, this seemed suspect, mostly because of the wording of the message, but the fact that it was forwarded by a prominent Bangalorean seemed to be a clincher for some. Soon enough, this was busted too, as, in fact, the contemporary singer, to whom it was attributed, denied it.

But it pointed out a few interesting facts: people love nostalgia, and anything that reminds them of the good old days will be embraced and hailed immediately. The second fact is that nobody bothers to fact-check and will blissfully and eagerly share forwards. To be sure, since all the other people who were cited as having written the song have left this world, it would have been hard to ask them, and it was only because the singer was around that the second myth was busted.

I feel that the whole song was a deliberate hoax, like the kind Spotify has been accused of—creating fake music by fake musicians who become popular. I see it on YouTube—’ morning music’ or whatever vibe you want is available with AI-generated humans moving to AI music. Pleasant at first listen, but ultimately without heart. And it had to happen in the AI capital of India. I don’t think it was done by Gen Z or Millennials. I suspect it’s a boomer or a Gen X – simply because of the ‘69’ in the lyrics (If you get the allusion, you get it; I need not explain).

Two good things came out of it: I discovered a genuine Bangalore song (or rather, rediscovered it thanks to Raman Iyer) composed and released by Thomas Itty in 2021. An old Bangalorean and Cottonian, he moved to the US as a young man. His song is about ‘the chopping of trees … and the change making him break down and cry’. How often have we thought our city was better off before it was taken over by the tech industry? ( https://www.facebook.com/thomasitty2/videos/854284755253581/?rdid=uJ520jzvS8RCfQNm#)

Secondly, Nirupama Menon Rao (I honestly don’t know how she finds time to do all that she does in a single day) dug up another song titled ‘Bangalore’ published as far back as 1919 by the Stasny Music Co. The song is attributed to Earl Burtnett and A.J. Stasny (who published popular American sheet music). https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/do/search/?q=author%3A%22Earl%20Burtnett%22&start=0&context=84184

 Earl Burnett was a bandleader, songwriter, and pianist who was popular in the 1920s and 1930s (according to Wikipedia). I did my own sleuthing but found there’s no record of him ever having visited India or Bangalore, which accounts for the wildly inaccurate description in the lyrics: “ In Bangalore I want to be once more. Where moonbeams grand form a path on the golden sand, Tropic breeze and whispering trees, They seem to come back once more. Won’t you come back to Bangalore? Mem’ries of you by my side Roaming ‘cross the desert wide, incense perfume fills the air. Oh, how I wish that I were there.” 

In all probability, he wanted to write an ‘Oriental’ song, and having come across someone during his tours who had visited Bangalore, he seized upon the name for the song.

At the rate at which groundwater is depleting, and tree cover is vanishing, will our city, beloved by any name, Bengaluru or Bangalore, indeed become a desert? Let’s pray it doesn’t. 

• Sandhya Mendonca is the Founder & Managing Director of Raintree Media, which publishes The Good City.