Early last year when Asif Hassan came to me and told me that the band wanted me to write and sing a song for them, I was in belief. It was a beautiful track, with the working title, Sundance, composed by their bassist, Asif Ayon(who is also my band's bassist, now). My first reaction was, "Why would I write a song? I can't write in Bangla." Asif told me to write the song in English. It took me quite a long time to settle on the lyrics, but after a few months, we jammed on the track, and the band seemed pretty indifferent about it. I didn't know if the band was really happy with what I made, so I reworked the lyrics at least 4 times, until a few months had passed and they wanted me to practice the song again before they started recording their album. Even after that rehearsal, I was convinced that I wasn't doing justice to their composition. That was the first time that Rushmian Wadud told me what he wants the song to be about. Surprisingly, I somehow wrote exactly what he wanted, and asked him if he had read the lyrics. He told me he hadn't. I don't think anyone other than Faruq Reza Mitul read each iteration of the lyrics that I would post in a facebook thread to keep the band updated. Mitul would reply after every iteration with a "joss" or "ending ta bhallagse" sort of comment. By then, I had already changed the name of the song to Signal even though the band kept referring to it as Sundance, which made me think I hadn't done a good enough job. Nevertheless, I set out to rewrite the song in Bangla, and that turned out to be an epic failure. A couple months before PNG re-entered the studio, I met up with Rushmian and asked him about what to do with Signal. He said, "Tilok bhai, just sing what you made. I just want to get the album out now."
Fast forward to 2019. The day of the recording: I enter Rakat Zami's cozy studio and Rushmian looks at me and says, "Lyric ta bhalo hoise".
---
I think this song is one of my proudest achievements. Not because I really like what I wrote, but because I made it to one of the best albums to come out of Bangladesh. I am not at all being biased, but stating what I really feel about the album. I don't know if we will ever see Petty playing together again, but they sure as hell left a dent in the ripple of many good music that's come out of the country. Thank you, Petty. You will be missed
