Like vagabonds, songs are restless. They wander without any fixed address and travel to the unlikeliest of places. Sometimes they are also repurposed in innovative ways. ‘Jaan pehchan ho’ (film: Gumnam, 1965) plays in the background of a chic Eastern restaurant inhabited by magicians and dragons, as part of a Heineken ad released a decade ago. And it is serendipitous listening to the faint sounds of ‘Mera joota hai japani’ (film: ‘Shree 420’, 1955) in a taxi in the whipsmart Hollywood flick, ‘Deadpool’ (2016).

Songs have the ability to talk across generations and cultures. But even the most devoted of Indian film lovers wouldn’t have fathomed the way ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ from producer-director B Subhash’s musical hit, ‘Disco Dancer’ (1982), was recently recast in China. To those who missed the news, snatches of the song were put out on the social media network Douyin, the Chinese name for TikTok. In Mandarin “Jie mi, jie mi” translates into “Give me rice, give me rice”.

In the satirical, soft-protest video, two women and a young girl, in Indian dresses, lip sync to the jivy number holding empty bowls to illustrate how they are deprived of basic food items due to a Coronavirus lockdown. The fact that the artists opted for ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ underlines the song’s recall value in China and why it was used to make a political point.

Written by Anjaan and composed by Bappi Lahiri, the easily-accessible footstomper has gathered 92 million views, 450,000 likes and over 20,000 comments on YouTube. Many comments are from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Georgia and others countries which were once part of the erstwhile Soviet Union and with whom India has shared an abiding link through songs, most notably ‘Awara hoon’ (film: Awara, 1951). As Arsen posted from Armenia this year, “If your (sic) a 80’s kid from the USSR, then you know this movie and song. It’s tattooed in your brain.”

The remark reflects how the song is part of the larger popularity of ‘Disco Dancer’, whose super success abroad lent iconic status to Mithun Chakraborty in these countries. Interestingly, the film’s title track was the bigger hit in India. In the 1982 annual radio countdown show of ‘Binaca Geetmala’, ‘I am a disco dancer’ (singer: Vijay Benedict), received a far higher rank (no 8) than ‘Jimmy’ (no 20).

There’s no place that ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ hasn’t been to. Posts from Malaysia, Serbia, Cameroon, Afghanistan, Syria, Romania, Mongolia, Israel, Argentina and other countries demonstrate the track’s enduring and diverse fan base. They show how songs can make you friends.

They also underline how ever-improving technology — audio cassettes, video tapes (generally pirated) in the 1980s, VCD and DVD (often pirated), the internet (pirated audio) and now video sharing social media platforms like YouTube — has enabled and magnified global engagement with music. In 2007, even British pop singer of Lankan origin, M. I. A, brought out her own version of the track. “‘Jimmy Jimmy’ is not just a song of India, but a song of the world,” an elated Subhash, told me over phone.

Crooned by Trinidad-born Parvati Khan, ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ evokes a joyful universality. But its tune can be traced to ‘T’es OK, T’es Bath’ (1980) of French pop duo Ottawan, as pointed out by itwofs. com, the website which diligently tracks Hindi film songs that have been inspired or lifted from foreign tunes. Few remember the original though.

In the age of video sharing sites, ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ isn’t just a song we hear. We watch it too. The number was choreographed by dance director Kamal and performed on celluloid by Kim, who shook and shimmied with vigour and enthusiasm amidst blinking lights. Those dance moves have been imitated in talent contests globally. Kamal and Kim are two under-appreciated contributors to the song’s popularity. Hindi film songs have always been part of India’s seductive soft power. They have seldom occupied world music charts but thousands have overcome language barriers and made home worldwide.

‘Jimmy Jimmy’ continues to globally teleport people to a place called nostalgia allowing them to reconnect to a time and a place they can no longer return to physically. Bisola Ayetigbo posted from Nigeria, “Omg! This song was my entire childhood… I can’t wait to send this to my sisters! We sang this song in the way we could all through our childhood even though we don’t understand any. . . the actors! They made my childhood so beautiful!”

Songs like ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ are our under-appreciated cultural ambassadors. In 2016, when a colleague visited a karaoke bar in Vladikavkaz, a city located in deep, south-east Russia, he was forced to sing ‘Jimmy Jimmy’. He hardly knew the words. But it didn’t matter. Drinks were on the house thereafter.