Sean Wilson chooses his best Disney songs of all time – do you agree with his choices?
What makes a truly great Disney song? It’s an imposing question and one we dared to answer as we combed some 86 years’ worth of cinematic history to choose our favourites.
Disney movies have always capably blended lush visuals and ear-worming tunes to crowd-pleasing effect and the following choices demonstrate the studio’s populist touch at its most impressive. From emotional ballads to villainous statements and catchy numbers for scene-stealing side characters, it demonstrates the incredible diaspora of Disney music that exists for fans to enjoy.
Best Disney songs of all time
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We Don’t Talk About Bruno (Encanto, 2021)
This visually luscious Disney CG animation was acclaimed as a celebration of Colombian culture. Disney veteran Lin-Manuel Miranda’s songs adorn this story of a family whose denizens, all bar one, are blessed with magic abilities, and Miranda’s genre-blending flair, along with Germaine Franco’s inventive score, keeps things snapping along.
The best scene revolves around black sheep Bruno who is treated to a propulsive and witty Latin pop/hip-hop arrangement that typically masks its resonant ancestral themes in a sparkling myriad of rhythmic and tonal changes.
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Hellfire (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1996)
There’s a longstanding tradition of villains getting great songs in Disney movies, from Ursula in The Little Mermaid to Scar in The Lion King. Arguably the richest and most powerful Disney baddie number comes in this underrated adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel. Composer Alan Menken, lyricist Stephen Schwartz and voice actor Tony Jay lean into a bracingly Gothic and thunderous sensibility as antagonist Frollo expresses the full range of his spiritual conflict over gypsy girl Esmerelda.
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Friends On the Other Side (The Princess and the Frog, 2009)
Keith David gives a rip-roaring performance as voodoo practitioner Doctor Facilier in this underrated Disney fantasy, to date the last of the studio’s hand-drawn efforts. Facilier’s introductory showstopper audaciously smuggles the voodoo theme into a family-friendly context, working off a raucous jazz band arrangement from Disney stalwart Randy Newman. The end result straddles both Deep South tradition and the classic Disney renaissance sound, cementing Facilier as a charismatic and dangerous antagonist.
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Heigh-Ho (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, 1937)
The future of feature-length animation was secured with the release of Disney’s groundbreaking masterpiece. Snow White was seen as a hugely risky gamble, but it paid off thanks to the movie’s vibrant visuals, emotive storytelling and memorable soundtrack, and all of those elements have become subsequent hallmarks of the Disney brand.
The song for the eponymous dwarves, Heigh-Ho, perfectly demonstrates how a humorous Disney ditty can become a dramatic shorthand. It perfectly encapsulates story and character development and draws the audience even further into the world of the film.
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Under the Sea (The Little Mermaid, 1989)
Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman helped lift Disney animation out of the doldrums with their hugely successful work on The Little Mermaid. The duo’s theatrical Broadway background helped galvanise the classic story of human-aspiring mermaid Ariel, painting with bold melodic colours and memorable rhythms in a manner that encouraged active audience participation. The calypso tune for crab Sebastian, Under the Sea, is a fine example of how a seemingly throwaway side number can teem with nuance and humour, and it eventually won the Oscar for Best Original Song.
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Let It Go (Frozen, 2013)
The scourge of parents everywhere, Let It Go is the most sensationally successful Disney track of recent times. Performed by Idina Menzel in her role as the isolated Queen Elsa, it occupies a defiantly contemporary attitude of empowerment and liberation, reflecting the dramatic progression of Disney princess figures in the 21st century.
But aside from all that, it’s really just a beltingly good power ballad: lyrically straightforward and melodically memorable, to the extent it sold more than 10 million copies in a single year and won an Oscar.
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You’ve Got a Friend In Me (Toy Story, 1995)
Toy Story birthed the notion of feature-length CG animation, securing Pixar’s place in the market and forever changing the landscape of family movies. Composer Randy Newman is a vital piece of the jigsaw, connecting us to the human principles lurking beneath the movie’s formidable technical achievements.
The first thing we hear is Newman’s characteristic vocal performance on ‘You’ve Got a Friend In Me’, which does a beautiful and succinct job in summing up the complex themes of the movie before we’ve even got introduced to the characters.
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Colours of the Wind (Pocahontas, 1995)
In the mid-1990s, this ambitious Disney animation struck a chord for diversity and representation with admittedly mixed results. Nevertheless, the ubiquitous Alan Menken, here collaborating with lyricist Stephen Schwartz, conjures a beautifully evocative celebration of Native American culture in ‘Colours of the Wind’. It’s a plea for compassion and solidarity as well as a testament to the beauty of the natural world, resoundingly performed by Tony-nominated stage star Judy Kuhn.
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Prince Ali (Aladdin, 1992)
The late Robin Williams galvanised this Oscar-winning Disney adventure with his inspired A-list riffing. In his role as the Genie, Williams unleashed a characteristic volley of impressions and madcap nonsense, and his energy is well harnessed in the movie’s energetic musical numbers.
The actor runs riot during the Prince Ali segment, bigging up our street rat hero Aladdin who has gone incognito as royalty in order to win the heart of Princess Jasmine. Will Smith tried to replicate it as the Genie in Guy Ritchie’s 2019 reboot, but there’s no besting Williams.
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The Bare Necessities (The Jungle Book, 1967)
In Disney’s hands, Rudyard Kipling’s classic novel The Jungle Book is reconfigured as a swinging, cool-cat jazz odyssey, replete with some A-list musical artists including Louis Prima. (There’s also a host of vultures styled to look like The Beatles.) It’s an unlikely combination but one that works a charm, nowhere more so than in the characterisation of the chilled out bear Baloo. Disney regular Phil Harris brings his singular tones to the finger-snapping Bare Necessities, which has endured as one of the studio’s most popular and inventive odes to friendship.
We named The Jungle Book the best Disney soundtrack of all time
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When You Wish Upon a Star (Pinocchio, 1940)
This tender lullaby made history as Disney’s first Oscar winner for Best Original Song. When You Wish Upon a Star acts as the emotional backbone of puppet Pinocchio’s adventures, encapsulating his desire to become a real boy with grace and warmth.
The song was written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington and performed by Jiminy Cricket voice actor Cliff Edwards. Several decades later in 1977, John Williams used the five notes in the song as the spine of his score for Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi drama Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
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Baby Mine (Dumbo, 1941)
Here’s a Disney song that consistently breaks the hearts of even the most hardened movie-goers. The bond between flying infant elephant Dumbo and his incarcerated mother is magnificently cemented via the heartbreaking lullaby Baby Mine, performed with dignity and beauty by (uncredited) vocalist Betty Noyes, who later dubbed Debbie Reynolds in 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain.
It’s a marvel of melodic simplicity, particularly when experienced in line with the film’s visuals that cycle through a host of parental relationships between various species before poignantly coming to rest on Dumbo’s farewell.
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Circle of Life (The Lion King, 1994)
Disney’s renaissance period reached a new crescendo with the release of this 1994 blockbuster, a world-conquering, anthropomorphic adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The Lion King paints big and bold with its emotions, and a lot of that is down to the Oscar-winning score from Hans Zimmer (one of the greatest film composers ever), plus the input of celebrity artists including Elton John. Spines cannot fail to be tingled by the Circle of Life opening sequence, instigated by a visually rich African sun rise before splitting the vocal difference between Lebo M and Carmen Twillie. Even today, it never fails to take the breath away.
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Feed the Birds (Mary Poppins, 1964)
‘Feed the Birds’ is renowned as Walt Disney’s favourite song and it’s not difficult to see why. Julie Andrews’ typically flawless vocal range fashions a beautiful ode to compassion as she sings of the bird lady (played by screen legend Jane Darwell) on the steps of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Andrews’ vocals then merge with Richard and Robert Sherman’s superb orchestral and choral arrangement, which attains immense stature akin to the edifice itself. During downtime on the production, Walt Disney often requested the Shermans play it on the piano, such was his love for the piece.
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Beauty and the Beast (Beauty and the Beast, 1991)
If The Little Mermaid kick-started the Disney renaissance period, then ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is arguably the superior film in terms of story, visuals and soundtrack, hitting a note of reverent sincerity as it spins the unlikely union between the bookish Belle and the outwardly monstrous yet inwardly sensitive Beast.
Poignantly, it marked the final collaboration between composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, after the latter passed away midway through production. The resulting soundtrack is a noble, Oscar-winning testament to Ashman’s memory, graced by Menken’s powerful score and a host of musical numbers ranging from the irreverent to the dreamily romantic.
If it’s romance one is after, the impact of the title track, performed by Angela Lansbury in her role as Mrs. Potts, cannot be denied, meshing gorgeously with the movie’s breakthrough mixture of animation and CG during the central ball room dance. It still stands as one of the finest achievements in the studio’s history.
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