Life or Death Debate: Disney Songs

[Mike]

Life or Death Debate: Choose the hill you want to die on over a completely inconsequential matter of opinion and defend your position as if the lives of your family depends on it.

The judges will score the round arbitrarily whenever they damn well feel like it.

Debate #3: What is the BEST song from any full-length Disney animated feature?

This includes all animated features branded with the Disney and/or Pixar brands, but not any of the only partially animated Disney films like Mary Poppins or Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

[Eliahad]

Robin Hood and Little John Runnin' Through the Forest.

You're now singing it. I rest my case.

[poorpete]

So good and love they gave Roger Miller a chance and he did great. They should give more singer songwriters a chance at these musicals. They should, I dunno the right word, slum it more often instead of always picking the best from Broadway.

That said, I'll probably go with the best from Broadway and pick a Howard Ashman joint, just gotta narrow it down....

Ok gotta go with wit.

There's one song in town that's got all of it down

[Mike]

I cannot argue with either of those, except that I am now an Encanto stan. And the best of the lot? Yeah, I know you think I'm gonna talk about Bruno, but I'm not:

[DMDarcs]

I'm just here to tell you all that you're wrong.

You're Welcome.

[Eliahad]

Thank you, Mr. Miranda. Thank you.

[Phoebe]

Robin Hood and Little John Runnin' Through the Forest.

You're now singing it. I rest my case.

I don't even know this song. Now I've got to look it up.
This is a hard one to answer but I started and ended at the same place after thinking about it:



I'm torn on this one because there are so many good songs in the older movies that have stood the test of time and then some. Unfortunately some of the best ones are marked by racist stereotypes or interrupted by so much spoken word from the scene, or they would have to be sung by someone else to be great. So, Reflection it is.

[Tahlvin]

Enough said. The rest of y'all can just Let It Go.

[Kyle]

I'm just here to tell you all that you're wrong.

You're Welcome.

Thank you! We all know it's Dr. Pepper Zero Cream Soda, right?

[Mike]

Quick change in Life or Death Debate (tm) policy: if I am the person who sets up the debate, I will act as the moderator and not make an entry of my own. I may help argue one side or another just to stir discussion, but I will not have an actual dog in the fight. My close connection to the judges makes that unfair. So as much as I love Encanto, and especially Luisa, I'm withdrawing my nomination.

[Eliahad]

Hakuna Matata, Mike. Hakuna Matata.

[Phoebe]

Enough said. The rest of y'all can just Let It Go.

Ahh, if only clever wordplay were enough to make it a better song than Reflection.

[Tahlvin]

Enough said. The rest of y'all can just Let It Go.

Ahh, if only clever wordplay were enough to make it a better song than Reflection.

And yet, the version you posted of Reflection is the Christina Aguilera version, which was maybe in the film credits but not in the main part of the film. Is that even a valid submission, judges? Whereas the definitive version of Let It Go is from within the main part of the film, and therefore meets the requirements of the contest. We're not looking for "Disney song covers", we're looking for Disney songs.

[Phoebe]

Oh excuse me for not being able to find what you consider the original version of the song even though the other one is on the soundtrack of the movie so I would have assumed it was considered official, property laws being what they are.
Anyway fine, we don't have to be capitalists here. I was just trying to protect you from an even better version of the song that would stick in your head longer and break your heart more painfully. But if that's how you want to be go ahead and do the sing-along version yourself. Now I've got to go deal with my child who thinks that KFC has the best chicken. I can only solve one objective aesthetics problem at a time.

[Tahlvin]

Meh, Reflection can just Let It Go.

[DMDarcs]

The music in Hercules and Mulan is just not good.

[Mike]

As a completely impartial observer, let me explain why all of you are SO wrong:

Robin Hood and Little John Runnin' Through the Forest.

You're now singing it. I rest my case.

The song's name is Oo De Lally. That's what's wrong with it. Oo de lally. Golly, what a day.

That said, I'll probably go with the best from Broadway and pick a Howard Ashman joint, just gotta narrow it down....

Ok gotta go with wit.

There's one song in town that's got all of it down

Wow. It's actually hard to argue with this one. It's fun, funny, and clever. It's just lacking in emotional weight. It establishes our cartoonish, one-dimensional villain, but it's a novelty song.

I cannot argue with either of those, except that I am now an Encanto stan. And the best of the lot? Yeah, I know you think I'm gonna talk about Bruno, but I'm not:

You can't pick a song from a movie that's been out a month! Christ, you need at least a couple years to see what will stand the test of time. You were right to withdraw.

I'm just here to tell you all that you're wrong.

You're Welcome.

I thought of this one, but then I listened to it. It's super funny and certainly entertaining, but as charismatic as the Rock is, he's not that strong a singer.

Enough said. The rest of y'all can just Let It Go.

Yes, when I Googled "best disney songs", I got that same answer. It's just so overdone. I was never a huge fan of the song, and now, I can barely even judge it as a song, because my brain is so numb to it.

Hakuna Matata, Mike. Hakuna Matata.

Ha! Very clever. Good song. Fun song. But not rich or clever enough for "best" song.

Anyway fine, we don't have to be capitalists here. I was just trying to protect you from an even better version of the song that would stick in your head longer and break your heart more painfully. But if that's how you want to be go ahead and do the sing-along version yourself. Now I've got to go deal with my child who thinks that KFC has the best chicken. I can only solve one objective aesthetics problem at a time.

So your claim is that the best Disney song of all time is something that YOU consider to be a lesser version of a song that peaked at 19 on the Adult Contemporary chart?

If you're going to pick a Mulan song, the only one worth it's salt is I'll Make a Man Out of You. And that's not even in my top 5.

[Phoebe]

What are you talking about? There is no "lesser version"! The one IN the movie accompanies scenes of Mulan having her struggles with identity and feeling anguished! I assume that normal humans respond to this anguish in a way they might not respond to the sight of Christina Aguilera singing the same thing. But who can say how people react since they don't seem to understand this is the best song, even from this movie!
I already granted there are lots of worthy contenders. But Jiminy cricket is a bad singer, and I don't think we should be waiting for our prince to come, and be our guest has too many spoken word inserts, as does Bibbity Bobbitt boo. And THE best songs have the inescapable racism, from the ape who wants to be a man cub like you, and the cats who point out the obvious fact that everybody wants to be a cat, and the Siamese cats who just in general can't be talking about being Siamese if you please in that accent. What's the competition? Let it go? Yeah, decent. Also annoying as s*** after about three listens. You could rewind reflection a hundred times and it won't get old.

[Mike]

That's good. Argue that it's better than songs that no one has mentioned. It's like me standing next to my ugly friends to make myself look prettier.

I'm just saying extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[Phoebe]

When any of those other songs rise to the level of worthy competition I would need to mention to make my case, I'll let you know. Let it go was a big hit, and it's not a bad song, but making the same annoying pun about it twice only serves as a reminder of how annoying the song itself actually became.

[Tahlvin]

Sorry, Let It Go won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media, was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Song. And Reception? It wasn't nominated for shit. Instead, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic commented that the "Matthew Wilder and David Zippel's full-fledged songs [on Mulan] are flat and unmemorable."

We're looking for BEST song, and based on awards and critical reception, Let It Go wins hands-down. Is it overplayed at this point? Sure. But that's because it's the BEST SONG from a Disney full-length animated feature film.

So you can take your Reflection and your uber-refined palette and go sulk in the corner with your French fries and jar of homemade Cane's sauce and whinge about not having enough gravy.

P.S. - Sorry, I really do love you!

[Phoebe]

Um, yeah, I will be eating my fries with Canes sauce and wishing I had more gravy, because that's what people with good taste would do under these circumstances. I realize this is unfamiliar territory for you, both in terms of sauces and musics. What you've managed to prove above is that awards shows are, as usual, doing their worst, and some random joker named Stephen Thomas Erlewine - to distinguish himself from all the other Stephen Erlewine's of the Critic world - has no taste at all, much less good taste.

[Mike]

P.S. - Sorry, I really do love you!

You were so close.

[Phoebe]

Y'all, it's great even when this dude sings it, and he gets extra points not only for having a super cute dog chilling in the background, but also for having a little set of stairs so that his dog can get up to the chilling spot.

[bralbovsky]

Just for fun...Friends to the Bitter End "That's What Friends are For" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTrB45tfFDQ...from Jungle Book is a favorite.
Apparently I'm a Phillistine because I don't much care for the Lion King's music as music, but appreciate the style of Hercules.
Can always live without songs only Idina Minzel can sing, (a fan, but the songs...really?)

[Kyle]

Kuzco's Theme Song. Emperor's New Groove wasn't a musical, which is why it is the superior Disney movie. This song rules.

[Mando]

I've got a dream...
This song, while allowing us to see glimpses of the silly side of some seedy specimens, hammer home like Thor the idea that we all have a dream and they are as varied as the persons who have them.



nonono...I withdraw that...though I love it.


My heart belongs to Louie Prima's "I wanna Be Like You " from Disney's The Jungle Book
It is a perfect song in that it showcases American Jazz and swing with a nice scat/jazz/musical number and it tells the story of King Louie and his desire to become man and how he is sure that the only difference is the secret of "man's red fire"

The dance for this number was choreographed based on how Louie would lead his band in a train through the crowds when he performed.

Not to mention the Orangutan character was named after him.


also the b&w rehearsal

[Mando]

If you watched that video I know it's in your head now.

[Mike]

Whoa! I never passed on the judges' decision on this one. The majority opinion was actually "I Wanna Be Like You" from Jungle Book. Mando was right all along!

The judges explained their opinion:

“I Wanna Be Like You” – The Jungle Book (1967)
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche famously described the role of music as one of “intoxication and self-forgetfulness”, and there are numerous Disney songs which reflect that: The Lion King‘s “Hakuna Matata”, The Little Mermaid‘s “Under the Sea” and The Aristocats‘ “Everybody Wants to be a Cat”, among others. Even so, nothing traces the original Nietzschean dialectic with such scholarly punctiliousness as The Jungle Book‘s “I Wanna Be Like You” – and very little comes close to matching it for sheer richness and euphoria.

All of the characters here forget themselves as they are helplessly intoxicated by the hypnotic rhythm, as required by the German philosopher. The Nietzschean divinity of music, Dionysus, was described by philologist Walter F. Otto as “taming men’s opposition with whips of madness”, and that’s exactly what the god proceeds to do here as he becomes incarnate in King Louie, “the king of the swingers”.

If Nietzschean madness is a metaphor, then it’s hardly treated as a loose one: Baloo, whose in-groove cry is “Get mad, baby”, loses all cognition of self when hearing the music. Like a shaman in a rain-dance, or a teenager swirling to a trance beat, the bear becomes no more than a pulse in the communal ecstasy.

The counterpoise to Dionysus described in The Birth of Tragedy was Apollo, the god of sculpture and perfect forms, represented here by the backdrop: dusty ruins, bricks and statues from a civilization now presumably extinct. As Mowgli and Baloo surrender to Louie’s chaos on the literal plane, civilization itself crumbles before the anarchic apes on the symbolic one – a transition that is represented most successfully by the film’s game of mirrors.

Visually, each character in this musical piece is set up as a reflection of the next: Mowgli apes the apes by replicating their dance moves, even as Louie desires to be akin to Mowgli (“I wanna be like you”). Yet Louie is also the parody of the French dynasty of Louis kings, a distorted symbol of authority, shadowed by a smaller ape who acts as his replica (a parody of King Louie’s parody). Bagheera and Baloo also make for a parody of each other as they swap roles (one is serious, the other the comic relief, by turns). Baloo dresses up as the apes he was trying to antagonize; Bagheera camouflages by mimicking a statue of a panther that is identical to himself… there are almost more mirrors in this little song than in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining!

As Louie’s apes dance together – all self-similar, all swinging in perfectly mirroring couples – Mowgli takes a chimp by the hand and joins in with the choreography. He has “become like you” – and indeed, so has every other character.

Nietzsche’s Dionysus was never offered a more reverential tribute than in Disney’s fantastic “I Wanna Be like You” ballad, as the edges of the titular “I” and “you” are blurred to the point of sublimation. All referents of order and tradition are collapsed, including the inexhaustible (and usually indispensable) structure of language, which caves into the euphoric chaos as the singers end up babbling inarticulate sounds.

This joyful atmosphere was abandoned in Jon Favreau’s 2016 remake of The Jungle Book in favor of something much darker and disturbing. The result, while truer to the source material, was nowhere as rich and layered as the original by the Sherman Brothers: love of life, fear of death, joy and terror, ecstasy and climax, everything that characterizes Nietzsche’s eternal deity is so well-encapsulated in this amazing song that it transcends its own film, along with the very loose genre limits that were posed by Disney animated films.