Trivia

Son of Sachin Dev Burman and Meera Dev Burman.

In the song 'O Manjhi Re' from the movie Khushboo (1975), he used soda bottles with water filled at different levels and created a "phook" sound by blowing into them. This sound was used with the orchestra.

He was the first to introduce the Brazilian bossa nova rhythm in Hindi film music - the song was "Maar dalega dard-e-jigar", sung by Asha Bhosle, in "Pati Patni".

Trio of Rajesh Khanna - R.D.Burman - Kishore Kumar worked together in 32 films.

His closest friends were Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand, Gulzar, Kishore Kumar and Gulshan Bawra.

Apple did it again as a tribute to RD Burman, they launched iPhone 13 with an ad in the launch event at Cupertino. The ad featured RD Burman's Dum Maro Dum.

Pancham Unmixed: Mujhe Chalte Jaana Hai ... (2008) , the acclaimed documentary on RD Burman was launched on Netflix worldwide and is not hosted on iTunes. The film premiered in Los Angeles in a Film Festival and went on to win 2 National Awards in India. It was also screened by National Geographic in their Sunday night special and was released by PVR pan-India.

Bollywood Freaks song "Last Night Bollywood Saved My Life" sampled a old classic song of his.

The international album "Sacred Sounds" by Lion, the Uncommon Samurai sampled many of Rahul Dev Burman's music scores from films.

2 Kool album Classic Cuts (R. Burman's Hits by 2 Kool) remixed several of his hits. This was in 1996.

A song titled "R. D. Burman" was released in the international album, Ragged Atlas by Cosa Brava. It was done as a tribute to the legend.

ALI THE SON OF ABDUL song BLOOD JOURNAL sampled a old classic song of Rahul Dev Burman.

Iriscience, Malay Sparks & Last Emperor song Copenhagen sampled a old song by Rahul Dev Burman for the album Okayplayer Bollywood Remake - Deleted Scenes.

Talib Kweli song Rock On from the album Okayplayer Bollywood Remake - Deleted Scenes, sampled a old song by Rahul Dev Burman.

Jay Electronica song "Dimethyltryptamine" sampled a old song of Rahul Dev Burman.

Beat Gates sampled several of Rahul Dev Burman's songs for their album "Bangalang".

Was best friends with Pete (Ganesh) Gavankar. Pete was the nephew of sound recordist Mangesh Desai. Pete is also the father of actress, singer Janina Gavankar and famous journalist Sonya Gavankar. They use to visit Pancham when ever they visited India and Pancham stayed with them in Chicago when he visited America.

Rahul Dev Burman's Bengali song Mone Pore Ruby Boy was sampled WiseRap X song The London Saga.

Composers Jatin Lalit would often directly lift tunes from lesser known but good tunes of R.D.Burman s musical composition of 70s for composing songs in the nineties. The interlude and antara of the song Hey Mujhe Dil Dey from Mr. Romeo (1974) composed by Rahul Dev Burman was lifted and made as a song Dil Mein Hai Tu Dhadkan Mein Tu in 1997 film Paandav. Then the saxophone piece in the song Chahe Raho Door was lifted and pasted in Sason Ko Sason Mein from Hum Tum in 2003.

Rodin sampled a old Burman song for the song "Kamptown".

The public came to know of the RD-Asha wedding only after RD passed away. And that too after his relatives came for Assam and accused Asha of some financial gadbad.

The intro music of Rahul Dev Burman song "Caminando" from his international album Pantera was later used as inspiration. The intro music of The Cosby Show Season 3, used a similar tune.

Most star sons launched in 1980s had music by RD Burman in their debut films. His music was considered iconic and for the youth. Sunny Deol (Betaab), Sanjay Dutt (Rocky), Suniel Anand (Anand aur Anand), Kumar Gaurav (Love Story) are some of the examples.

RD Burman, arguably is the most remixed artist in the world. From 1990s, the trend to remix his songs for Indipop albums started and even in 2020's several mainstream films use his music in original or mixed like Sanju, Student of the Year, Jigra, Monica O my Darling, etc.

Javed Akhtar recollects that after the recording of one of the songs of 1942 A Love Story, the musicians stood up and clapped in the honor of RD Burman, in his presence. They felt that they had not played for such a song in many years. This was the worst phase of Indian film music and RD Burman brought film music back from auto rickshaws to people's drawing rooms. He died before this album released and he could not see how he rewrote history. But he was very satisfied with this music and knew he would be back in the business.

IPhoneX Unlock Ad featured 1:06 minutes of original soundtrack composed by RD Burman for 1980 blockbuster The Burning Train. The music was wrongly credited to Pete Cannon who later admitted on Twitter that it is indeed an RD Burman original composition and he had just purchased the rights and sold them to iTunes.

Zakir Hussain played a character that was based on the legend Rahul Dev Burman in the movie Saaz. Zakir's body language, happy go lucky nature, genius composing abilities, being loved by fellow artists, unique styling - and even his shirts were based on Rahul Dev Burman.

On his own submission, he used to get tunes in his dreams, and on the advice of his father, began getting up as soon as he "dreamt" of a tune and wrote it down. Songs such as "Mera naam Shabbo", "Kanchi re kacnhi re" had come to him in his sleep.