The song had been recorded by
Mithoon two years before its release with
Arijit Singh's vocals. Mithoon recalls, Mithoon described how the
Aashiqui 2 team was conducting a public search to find the right voice for the film’s protagonist (played by
Aditya Roy Kapur), but he was convinced that Arijit Singh was the ideal choice for "Tum Hi Ho." He recalled: "When I played the ‘Tum Hi Ho’ track to Mohit Suri, it was already recorded in Arijit’s voice. The first thing he asked me was, ‘Who is the singer?’ I said the singer’s name is Arijit Singh, and Mohit said, ‘This is bang on. I want him for all the songs in the soundtrack.’ And that was a very fulfilling moment for me because creativity won at that moment." Mithoon chose Arijit Singh for the vocals at a time when Singh was still in search of a major breakthrough. He said that it was Singh’s voice and singing style that impressed him: “I always look for voice and not names. Singers like Shilpa Rao and Mohammed Irfan were just names when they started working and they have reached places.” While recording the song, Mithoon asked Singh to keep the delivery emotionally restrained: “I never wanted the emotion to be exaggerated. Despite the word ‘Aashiqui’ being repeated quite often, the notes are extremely simple.” Describing his creative process, Mithoon said he typically composes in parallel with songwriting, beginning with scene narration from the director to ensure the song fits the story. He emphasized that his aim was never to create a hit track, stating, “My approach for ‘Tum Hi Ho’ was never to create a title track… The song holds more values than these numbers.” He reiterated this point with
PTI via
NDTV that he aims to create "soulful tracks without bothering about any hype or trend," stating, "As a film music director, I only aim at conveying the story through my music." He emphasized keeping the composition for “Tum Hi Ho” simple, noting that the song "does not have much except sincere lyrics and a single melody." Regarding the lyrics, Mithoon explained that the lyrics for “Tum Hi Ho” emerged organically while developing the melody, despite not being initially assigned to write the song. He said, “When Mohit Suri briefed me, and I was surrounded by those thoughts, I just came up with those lines—‘Hum tere bin ab reh nahi sakte, tere bina kya wajood mera…’. I think it just came very naturally to me.” He added that the positive audience response to the song encouraged him to continue writing lyrics for his compositions on future projects. ==Release==