ABSTRACT
With film songs being a pan-Indian and global phenomenon, an examination of their life outside the Hindi film and their myriad audiences and contexts is a vast subject. This chapter overviews the life of film songs after they have been released. It explores their popularity, how audiences come into contact with them and appropriate and enjoy them, and some of the ways in which they are absorbed into the musical culture of South asia and of the South asian Diaspora. The chapter examines the cinematic and the non-cinematic contexts of audience reception. It then investigates the popularity of songs and explores the extent of their dependence on the parent film. The chapter examines the ways in which the general public comes into contact with film songs. It explores some of the ways in which audiences themselves appropriate, adapt and enjoy film songs and integrate them into their lives on an individual or small-scale, rather than a corporate or mass level.
