I believe as the topic says - Five best songs of Nusrat, I will not refrain myself of including his non-bollywood songs in my list.
So my list begins. Please note that the numbers are provided only for the sake of differentiating between the songs.
1. Jism Damakta from the album Sangam.
The beauty of this song lies in the soft way of singing by NFAK(which he rarely does), the soft background music and the powerful lyrics by Javed Akhtar Saheb.
This song is more of a connection between two entities like * bhikshu daani, pyaasa paani, dariya saagar, jal gaagar*. Beautiful, isn’t it?
2. Unki gali mein aana jaana from the album Loe Loe
This song is in my list because it didnot contain the normal singing style of Nusrat but it had all the features of a melodious commercial song. The music is very rich as well as the words. Words like Har aahat par hum ye soche wo aaye wo aaye hain, Aise aksar dhokhe khaana aadat si ek ho gayi hai, enhance the beauty of the song.
3. Teri Yaad from the movie Kartoos
This song is different. With Udit Narayan singing a duet with NFAK, it was always a pleasure to listen how these two genius matched their scales. With Ustaad sahab singing in one octave higher than Udit, this song sounds good to ears as Udit sings Laut ke sab aa gaye, par tu na aaya sanam in a low and soothing scale, Ustaad sahab comes up with his high energy Teri Yaad aayi teri yaad. A feast for listeners.
4. Tanhai from the movie Dillagi
The catelogue says: Music - Anand-Milind. I still doubt whether the arrangement was AM’s or the complete composition. The song is typical Nusrat kinda song with all his trademark alaaps and high scale singing. I have chosen this song because this song has the range of surs from very low scale to a very high scale. It creates a richness in the song which is very much soothing to the ears.
5. Ankhiyaan Udeek Diyaan from the album Ankhiyaan Udeek Diyaan
This song was originally composed by Nusrat for Late Shri Raj Kapoor Saheb, for his movie Henna. Later due to certain political issues, NFAK was replaced by the legendary Ravindra Jain as the music director for his film. The song remained in the movie but had only a small reflection of the original composition. * Ankhiyaan o dekh diyaan* in Henna is actually Ankhiyaan Udeek Diyaan of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. This song is I believe the best song that Nusrat has ever composed. I have included this song in my list as it is different from the other songs in the field that it does not have so many ups and downs like his other songs and is much more melodious than his other numbers.
Please comment on this rating if you think that I have missed out some songs or overrated some.