My Essential Soundtrack: Movie Musicals Edition

After long and careful thought (almost 15 whole minutes' worth), I have decided that it's time to share my essential soundtrack as it relates to movie musicals.  As you'll see, I'm pretty partial to animation, especially from That Mouse Company Whose Name I Daren't Speak and Don Bluth, and also to full-fledged film musicals, rather than film adaptations of stage musicals.  Here are the tracks that I love, including YouTube links that will probably be inactive in a week (one movie studio in particular is pretty vigilant about its copyrights) and a brief explanation of why these are the finest songs-from-movies ever.  At least as far as I am concerned.

1. "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tale

Besides just being a sweet song in general, the young actors' performance is so completely innocent and pure, botched notes and all.  Much more genuine than the Auto-Tuned performances you tend to hear today.

2. "I'll Make A Man Out of You" from Mulan.

Energizing, fun, and dangit Donny Osmond can sing!

3. "Hellfire" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame

On the soundtrack, this appears as the second half of "Heaven's Light/Hellfire."  This piece has all the trappings of top-notch film music: thick and brooding orchestral accompaniment, notes of judgment and condemnation with the choir's Latin lyrics (most especially the repetition of "mea culpa" in the middle), and restatements of the film's central motive in the middle and at the end.  Do-mi-re, ti-re-do, do-mi-re-sol-mi-laaaaaaaa!

4. "Don't Make Me Laugh" from The Pebble and the Penguin

This poor little movie.  It had great ideas, great music, great cast (the voice you're hearing here is Tim Curry!) but no money.  And you can tell in the animation - they had to borrow from themselves, so that you see the same piece of animation happen in more than one place.  Maybe the spent the entire budget on Manilow!

5. "Stand Out" from A Goofy Movie

Don't know about you, but I SO wanted to try this stunt as a kid!

6. "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast

I maintain that this is the best movie this company ever made.  They had hit the perfect intersection of traditional and computer-generated animation, so that it looks beautiful without looking too digital.  And you can't lose with Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.  (Menken was also the composer for Hunchback and several other movies in House of Mouse's catalogue)

7. "The World's Greatest Criminal Mind" from The Great Mouse Detective

This one comes to you from Henry Mancini, composer of a certain little ditty called "The Pink Panther."  No big deal.  And Vincent Price as your villain!  He could sing about dirty socks and I would be scared.

8. "It's Like a B Movie" from The Brave Little Toaster

This, aside from being a pretty fun song in its own right, is a great study in the convergence of pop and film music.  I don't typically like for pieces to switch media, but this is one exception; I would LOVE to stage this song live for a Halloween show or something!

9. "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat" from The Aristocats

Another example of the folding of vernacular styles into film.  (Musician friends - it is REALLY bugging me that most of these songs have had their keys manipulated for posting on YouTube.  I realize it's probably a way to evade detection from Teh Copyrightz Poleez, but still.  Annoying!)

10. "Chim Chim Che-ree" from Mary Poppins

Dick van Dyke - insuring that generations of American children will never have a proper model for a Cockney accent!

11. "Baby Mine" from Dumbo

Full Disclosure: my mom used to sing this to me when I was an infant.  It was my lullaby.  For kicks, whenever she had some friends around, she'd say "Y'all watch this!" and start singing it to me.  Thinking it was bedtime, I'd start to cry.  25 years later, still has that effect on me, although for much different reasons.

12.  "Love" from Robin Hood

 That bassist is awfully busy for a ballad.  I think one of the reasons I like this song so much is because it's one of the few I can actually sing in its original key.  No one loves altos!

13. "Once Upon a December" from Anastasia

The piece that launched a thousand chorus concerts.  The score to this film was written to mimic the great Russian composers and you can hear the homage in the lilt and longing of this particular song.  It's almost sad that the source mythology for this film no longer applies.

14.  "Mother Nature's Song" from Happily Ever After

Three words: Phyllis.  Diller.  Singing.

15. "Streets of Gold" from Oliver and Company

When I was a kid, this song was one of my favorite parts of the movie and I wanted so badly to find it on tape or CD, but by the time I had been exposed to this movie, the soundtrack had long been out of print.  Thankfully, the internets came to the rescue and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this song was longer than the one-verse-one-chorus version that appears in the film.

16. "Snowmiser/Heatmiser" from The Year Without A Santa Claus

God bless Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass for their excellent Christmas movies!

17.  ...wait for it...



wait for it...



wait for it...



keep waiting for it...



ok here it comes...



"When You Wish Upon A Star" from Pinocchio

The House of Mouse made this their theme song for several reasons.  Pinocchio is the second-oldest film in their feature-length animation canon (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was first) and is recognized by audiences and insiders alike as one of the most significant films of all time.  It won Oscars and it has charted on more than one of the American Film Institute's best-of lists.  It was released in 1940 - I imagine that this song felt particularly meaningful to an America that had just seen one nasty war go down and was getting pretty distressed at the realization that a second was getting under way overseas.  This song captivated a collective psyche that wanted hope and has resonated down through the decades, echoing in the heart whenever you look at a clear night sky...

Like a bolt out of the blue, 
Fate steps in and sees you through.  
When you wish upon a star, 
your dreams come true.