The Best and Emotional Disney Songs

[Angeldude98]

I sure miss the days when every Disney film had incredible songs (a rarirty nowadays... please bring back Alan Menken and Tim Rice!!!). Anyway, my 20 favorite, emotion-provoking songs (in no particular order and from different types of films) are as follows (My most favorites in bold):

1. "If I Never Knew You" (Pocahontas - 10th Anniversary Edition)
2. "Beauty And The Beast (Beauty and the Beast)
3. "A Whole New World" (Aladdin)
4. "Love Will Find A Way" (The Lion King II - One of my favorite songs)
5. "Some Day My Prince Will Come" (Snow White)
6. "Once Upon A Dream" (Sleeping Beauty)
7. "Baby Mine" (Dumbo - Makes me tear up every time)
8. "When You Wish Upon A Star" (Pinocchio)
9. "Kiss The Girl" (The Little Mermaid)
10. "Circle Of Life" (The Lion King)
11. "Your Mother And Mine" (Peter Pan)
12. "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" (Cinderella)
13. "Out There" (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
14. "God Help The Outcasts" (The Hunchback of Notre Dame - It's just so moving!)
15. "Someone's Waiting For You" (The Rescuers - So sweet and heartfelt)
16. "Colors Of The Wind" (Pocahontas)
17. "Reflection" (Mulan)
18. "I See The Light" (Tangled - My favorite song in recent times)
19. "Feed The Birds" (Mary Poppins - Reportedly Walt's favorite song - it's very deep and says a lot!)
20. "Love" (Robin Hood)

What does your list look like and why?

[Musical Master]

Mine would most likely be the ones you bolded with "Part Of That World" and "Out There" included because all of them have such musical power to them that feels so organic to the story and characters of the Disney films. Ever since Snow White, the films and the art of songs have such a connection in a way that no matter what Disney film would try to be different, it loses that organic power.

Plus "Love Will Find a Way" is the only good song in the Disney sequel lineage.

[Pokeholic_Prince]

"You'll Be In My Heart" always without a doubt brings tears to my eyes. And when I hear with its accompanying animation, I lose my cookies.

Others will include:
"If I Never Knew You"
"Beauty and the Beast"
"A Whole New World"
"I See the Light"
"One Song"
"Part of Your World"
"Once Upon a Dream"
"I've Been Dreaming of True Love's Kiss"

[Angeldude98]

Mine would most likely be the ones you bolded with "Part Of That World" and "Out There" included because all of them have such musical power to them that feels so organic to the story and characters of the Disney films. Ever since Snow White, the films and the art of songs have such a connection in a way that no matter what Disney film would try to be different, it loses that organic power.

Plus "Love Will Find a Way" is the only good song in the Disney sequel lineage.

I agree. More than the animation style used (hand-drawn vs. CGI), I believe it was the songs that set Disney movies aside from others. The studio's dowhill landslide began when they stopped including those songs in the movies. A Disney movie was always distiguished by having the characters perform memorable songs that added to the story and were a part of the story ("Part of Your World", "Beauty and the Beast", "A Whole New World", "Out There", etc.). But then came Tarzan and now the songs were sung by a singer outside the film, and though the songs were good, they felt more like background music. Ok, maybe that can be forgiven because there were some good songs there ("You'll Be In My Heart"), but then came The Emperor's New Groove with less-than-memorable music (to put it nicely), and that was followed by Atlantis: The Lost Emipire, and it had zero songs. I think that's when the reall dowhill landslide began. After that songs were used sporadically and as part of the background score (though several of the ones in Brother Bear were pretty good). Disney was trying to break the mold and be different, and the strategy flopped and backfired. The result? Disney's 2000's dark age. It wasn't until "The Princess and the Frog" came (which brought back the story, character-performed songs) that Disney was again DISNEY. And they repeated the formula with "Tangled" which had excelent results. To me, a Disney film without great songs is not a real DISNEY film. I hope they continue the trend. Music is an essential part of the Disney magic and many times more than the story itself it's the songs that stay with you in your mind, and it's the songs that bring back the warm, fond memories of the Disney we all grew up with.

And as for "Love Will Find A Way", I completely agree. It is the very best song in the DTV sequels. Every time I watch the film I have to replay that song over and over. It's just that good and emotional!

[thedisneyspirit]

Get to me as in saddens me?? Well

Feed the Birds

Candle on the Water.

Love is a Song- Finale

Someone's Waiting for You

[Angeldude98]

Get to me as in saddens me??

By "getting to you" I'm not necessarily talking about saddening you. I meant it more on the line of songs that get to you on an emotional level, you know -- the kind of songs that tend to stick in your mind and make you shiver, that you find yourself humming automatically. They are those songs that make you dream or make you somewhat melancholy, that make you think and remember.
"Love Will Find A Way", "If I Never Knew You", and "As Long As There's Christmas"are three perfect examples.

Then there are those majestic show tune-type songs that make you shiver and soar. Some of my favorites in that category are "That Belle", "Be Our Guest", "One Jump Ahead", "Prince Ali", "Friend Like Me", "Honor To Us All", "Bells of Notre Dame", "Kill The Beast", "Circle of Life", "Be Prepared", "I Just Can't Wait To Be King", "Welcome" and "Hail To The Princes Aurora". (Yes, I love choral... hahaha!)

[Musical Master]

Mine would most likely be the ones you bolded with "Part Of That World" and "Out There" included because all of them have such musical power to them that feels so organic to the story and characters of the Disney films. Ever since Snow White, the films and the art of songs have such a connection in a way that no matter what Disney film would try to be different, it loses that organic power.

Plus "Love Will Find a Way" is the only good song in the Disney sequel lineage.

I agree. More than the animation style used (hand-drawn vs. CGI), I believe it was the songs that set Disney movies aside from others. The studio's dowhill landslide began when they stopped including those songs in the movies. A Disney movie was always distiguished by having the characters perform memorable songs that added to the story and were a part of the story ("Part of Your World", "Beauty and the Beast", "A Whole New World", "Out There", etc.). But then came Tarzan and now the songs were sung by a singer outside the film, and though the songs were good, they felt more like background music. Ok, maybe that can be forgiven because there were some good songs there ("You'll Be In My Heart"), but then came The Emperor's New Groove with less-than-memorable music (to put it nicely), and that was followed by Atlantis: The Lost Emipire, and it had zero songs. I think that's when the reall dowhill landslide began. After that songs were used sporadically and as part of the background score (though several of the ones in Brother Bear were pretty good). Disney was trying to break the mold and be different, and the strategy flopped and backfired. The result? Disney's 2000's dark age. It wasn't until "The Princess and the Frog" came (which brought back the story, character-performed songs) that Disney was again DISNEY. And they repeated the formula with "Tangled" which had excelent results. To me, a Disney film without great songs is not a real DISNEY film. I hope they continue the trend. Music is an essential part of the Disney magic and many times more than the story itself it's the songs that stay with you in your mind, and it's the songs that bring back the warm, fond memories of the Disney we all grew up with.

And as for "Love Will Find A Way", I completely agree. It is the very best song in the DTV sequels. Every time I watch the film I have to replay that song over and over. It's just that good and emotional!

And now Frozen and Giants will continue that wonderful musical tradition.

[thedisneyspirit]

There's way too much "2D Beats CGI!!/A Disney movie MUST have songs!!" mentality around here. I hate that.

So I won't comment further on this subject.

[Musical Master]

There's way too much "2D Beats CGI!!/A Disney movie MUST have songs!!" mentality around here. I hate that.

So I won't comment further on this subject.

Don't worry I understand how you feel. There are some Disney movies which have no songs that I actually like; the movies Bolt, Wreck It Ralph, and The Emperor's New Groove (even though that has one opening song in it), come into my mind.

I feel that the art of songwriting and animation (2D or otherwise) had this emotional, spiritual and connective drive that feels like both of them were made for each other.

I think Howard Ashman said something like that when he gathered the Disney crew and explained why songs and animation should be together.

[Disney's Divinity]

I'm going with the melancholy/sad route, because it would be much shortere:

"Reflection"
"Part of That World"
"Part of Your World (Finale Reprise)"
"One Jump Ahead (Reprise)"
"A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes (Choral Reprise)"
"Baby Mine," of course
"Goodbye May Seem Forever"
"I'm Still Here"
"Everything That I Am" (Tarzan Musical)

[DisneyJedi]

You know that Atlantis wasn't the first Disney film without songs sung by the characters, right, Musical Master?

Remember The Black Cauldron? That had no character-sung songs whatsoever.

[Musical Master]

You know that Atlantis wasn't the first Disney film without songs sung by the characters, right, Musical Master?

Remember The Black Cauldron? That had no character-sung songs whatsoever.

Yes I know that, what I did was to list the Disney movies without songs which I saw and liked.

I wasn't actually listing all the Disney movies without the musical songs was I?

[DisneyJedi]

Well, I was kind of under the impression that you forgot that The Black Cauldron was a non-animated musical film.

[Musical Master]

Well, I was kind of under the impression that you forgot that The Black Cauldron was a non-animated musical film.

Don't worry I haven't forgotten about The Black Cauldron even though it is quite an INFAMOUS movie in the Disney animation canon for obvious reasons.

[thedisneyspirit]

The Black Cauldron sucks ass.

So it's better to forget it anyway.

Anyway, songs that get to me:

1) A Whole New World- favorite song of all time, not DISNEY, but non-Disney stuff. It's that good for me. I really get into the sense of flying and romance- it's so nice.

2) Beauty and the Beast- great atmosphere, i love how romantic and soft it is.

3) Colors of the Wind- preachy lyrics, but I do love Judy Kuhn's voice and the instrumental. And I do like the last line. "You can own the earth and still, all you'll own is earth until...

4) Part of that World: by the arrangement you really feel to be under the sea, it's very soft and melodious, listening to only the instrumental makes me think of an aquarium.

5) One Song: I love how majestic the orchestration sounds. Like the triumphant march of the victor of a battle, lovely.

[Edthehyena]

Good Topic !
Songs that could make me cry...

- Reflection ( Don't know why... Of course " part of this world " is a hit. And i don't even like Mulan that much. But that short song is one of the most intense, touching and well built wish song ever to me)
- I'll Try (From return to never land)
- When Will My Life Begin part II ( the movie version when she leaves the tower. That song is THE Disney essence in the middle of a boring score)
- Healing Incantation ( Tangled again ! That song is so magic and bitter sweet ! A Menken discrete miracle...)
- Out There
- Your Mother and Mine & The Second Star To The Right
- Prince Ali part II ( Yep ! Don't ask me why, so dramatic, with that mad laugh at the end, i'm lovin' it ! Goose bumps every time)
- Will the Sun Ever Shine Again & Wherever the Trail May Lead ( from the terrible home on the range, but those menken songs are so underated, they're among the most beautiful tunes he wrote...)
- Santa Fe ( from newsies. Menken again. Ultimate Wish Song)
- Brazzle Dazzle Day ( No one loves Pete's dragon. I don't know why, that song goes straight to my heart everytime. It's just pure joy of life)
- Big Blue World ( Same than above. Bobby Lopez in the place ! Just love that song, so sincere, so heartful...)

[Angeldude98]

- Brazzle Dazzle Day ( No one loves Pete's dragon. I don't know why, that song goes straight to my heart everytime. It's just pure joy of life)

You're wrong with that remark! At least I love "Pete's Dragon". It's a wonderfully entertaining movie! And I love it's songs too! I don't know why I didn't include it. From this film, I love "Candle on the Water", "It's Not Easy", and also "Brazzle Dazzle Day".

And from "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" one of the songs that stand out to me is "The Age of Not Believing".

And from "Enchanted", I really like "I've Been Dreaming of True Love's Kiss", "How Does She Know" and "Happy Working Song".

And no list would be complete without "Song Of The South" and my favorite song from that film, "Zip-a-dee-do-dah". From that film I also like the opening song "Song of the South" and the "Zip-a-dee-do-dah" reprise at the end.

[thelittleursula]

I'm sadden by the lack of " I Can Go The Distance " and " Out- There " Here.



Imo they're both extremely emotional and provoking. And even though- provoking; as in Out There Frollo at the beginning is kinda right, people are jerks and most of the time judge by appearance.

[thedisneyspirit]

Yeah, I'm not fond of Hunchback but Out There is actually very nice. The visuals help a lot, too.

[Angeldude98]

Also "It's Mine" from Pocahontas is a powerful show song, especially the part sung by John Smith (Mel Gibson). Did Mel Gibson actually sing this song? I don't recall. If he did, he did a pretty good job!

And backtracking a bit, I don't know why they ommitted "If I Never Knew You" from the theatrical release (and from the lates Blu-Ray release). It's such a beautiful, powerful song! I loved how they gave us the option to watch the film with or without the song in the 10th anniversary DVD. They should have done the same thing for the Blu-Ray release!