The Ten Greatest Disney Songs

I’m an unabashed Disney fanatic. I love the films, the theme parks, the merchandise, I love it all and have ever since I can remember. I credit Disney with building my (often overactive) imagination and blame them – albeit quite lovingly – for giving me unrealistic expectations of a utopian life.  

Yes, some Disney tunes are awfully cheesy (Someday My Prince Will Come plus other princess yearnings) but a truth that I don’t think anyone could wholeheartedly deny is that they have created some absolutely stunning songs over the years. From melodramatic ballads to cheeky sea shanties, jungle tinged rhythms to Bayou-worthy jazz, there is definitely a Disney tune for every mood. I adore the songs below for nostalgic reasons; they remind me both of my childhood and of perpetually memorable trips to Disneyland; but I also love them simply because they are all damn good songs.

So, if you’re in the mood for a little nostalgia, romance, laughter, or drama, here are my 10 absolute favourite Disney musical moments:

10. Heigh Ho, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Simple, brilliant, and an unbelievable 74 years old. Who doesn’t love the scene of the homeward bound, hard-working but ever-cheerful, dwarfs trooping across the fallen-tree bridge at sunset? An everlasting classic. 

9. Everybody Wants To Be A Cat, The Aristocats. I hate cats but I love this song: New Orleans jazz meets 1930s Parisian swinging style. Slightly racist depiction of a chopstick-wielding, piano playing Siamese but I’m sure it was all meant it good fun…! (Not like Disney would ever be racist. What’s that you say? The Peter Pan Indians and the….shh!) 

8. Someone’s Waiting For You, The Rescuers. One of Disney’s most beautiful creations, proving that you don’t always need huge ballads with dramatic key changes to put lumps in peoples’ throats. Stunning. 

7. Kiss the Girl, The Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid has some of the best songs in the Disney catalogue; Under the Sea, Part of Your World, and Poor Unfortunate Souls but Kiss the Girl triumphs for me because it’s my favourite romantic moment from any Disney movie. It carefully builds up to the moment everyone’s been waiting for, only for the entire scene to be scuppered by two pesky eels with anti-kissing dispositions and freakishly strong, boat-flipping tails. The animation is also stunning. 

6. Beauty and the Beast (Tale As Old As Time), Beauty and the Beast. A beautiful song sung by enchanted teapot, Jessica Fletcher, I mean, Mrs Potts (aka: Angela Lansbury). It plays during the ballroom dancing moment where Beasty reveals his soft-side. I always wanted Belle’s yellow gown when I was younger, I swear I’ve gotten over that… Really. 

5. Yo Ho, Yo Ho A Pirate’s Life For Me, Pirates of the Caribbean Ride. Like many others, I loved this song long before Jack Sparrow had swaggered his way onto the big screen. A brilliant song that encapsulates pirate life and makes me wish that I was in one of those clumsy boats, drifting through the greatest theme park ride ever created. And it’s all thanks to Walt’s love of pirates – what a man .  

4. Hell Fire, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Hell Fire is undoubtedly the most epic Disney villain song. Sung by Frollo, all round nasty piece of work, who has problems dealing with his “feelings” towards the sultry gypsy Esmerelda. Powerful, soaring, and dramatic. Love it.

3. Circle of Life, The Lion King. This song, along with some of the most stunning animation of all time, combine seamlessly to give 1994′s The Lion King what is arguably the greatest ever movie opening. Perfect. (Oh and baby Simba’s sneeze at 2:43 is possibly the cutest moment in the history of film.) 

2. You Can Fly! You Can Fly! You Can Fly! Peter Pan. So good they had to name it three times This is classic Disney music at its absolute best. The innocently hilarious build up to the song, the characters landing on Big Ben, and Nana (the nursemaid St Bernard) attempting to fly with her enchanted bum and flapping ears are highlights of the accompanying animation sequence. “Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning”; anyone coming? 

1. When You Wish Upon A Star, Pinocchio. The type of song that makes you think – if this was piped through a war-zone, all fighting and hatred would subside for at least 3 minutes and 13 seconds. (There’s that Disney-raised imagination of mine!) Regardless of whether it could stop global conflict, it is comprised of stunningly old-fashioned orchestrations, beautiful lyrics, and absolutely perfect vocals (from Jiminy Cricket, naturally), all liberally dusted with captivating Disney magic and heartwarming idealism. Just gorgeous. 

Hope you’re all feeling nice and magical now! x

P.S: I wasn’t including Pixar films in this list; I never could have narrowed it down to ten.

Popcorn! (A Song Guaranteed To Make You Smile)

A very short and simple post today, I didn’t have time for anything else.

Music is one of the few things in life that has the incredible power of (naturally!) lifting your spirits when you’re feeling really low. So, I decided to share one of the songs that never fails to brighten my day. It’s a cover of the Gershon Kingsley 1969 electronic song, Popcorn, by Muse and was a B-side to their single Resistance. It is literally like happiness captured in a song! I dare anyone to try and not feel uplifted after listening.
(Apparently Muse used to hear it at their local roller-disco in Devon when they were young teenagers and, many years later, recorded it one day when they were just messing around in the studio!)

Enjoy!

An Aural Assault: Ten Of The Worst Songs Ever Recorded

Everyone has songs they can’t stand. And I don’t mean a trivial “ugh, I really hate that song, can’t wait until it ends” sort of hate. I’m talking about the kind of hatred that upon hearing said song, you feel like doing one of the following:

• Ripping the sound system  out of the wall / car /  shopping centre roof and repeatedly jumping up and down on said system until you are assured it will never EVER again play that song. (Or anything else, for that matter.)
• If in a nightclub / bar, definite desertion of the dance floor, possible rude gestures / profanities / bottles aimed towards the pitiful excuse for a DJ.
• If heard through someone else’s earphones or their humming – fighting the innate urge to punch them and running away, screaming.
• Ripping your ears off.

Out of Shot: Mickey has (foolishly) started humming "It's A Small World After All" again....

In other words, nothing pleasant ever results from hearing these kind of songs.

What intrigues me most is that the tunes that invoke these kind of feelings in people are often surprising. In other words, they don’t tend to simply be bafflingly successful pop travesties such Justin Bieber’s latest slop, but are sometimes songs by otherwise generally credible and reliable artists; even by ones you usually like yourself. Obviously this is not always the case, but it can be! In other words, these songs are not necessarily “bad” songs, just ones that – for often unknown reasons – are pure aural torture.

So, what are the songs that make me feel pain akin to having my ears dipped in boiling oil? (Not that I have ever experienced that, it was just the most painful analogy that came to mind). I take absolutely no pleasure in sharing these songs with you but rest assured, I will probably be justly punished by having one of them take up residence in my head for an excruciating number of hours.

• The wonderful sounds of the new Friendly Fires’ album Pala will be the equivalent of a lab coat and safety googles while I’m compiling this list. I would advise anyone reading to take similar measures.

My Aural Protection

Ten of the Most Irritating Songs Ever Inflicted Upon Mankind: 

(Not in any particular order, they’re all equally horrific. Apart from the top two; they’re exceptional atrocities.)

10. Superstar, Jamelia. This song made 2003 living hell for me. Apparently it won an Ivor Novello award that year for “Most Performed Song” (why is that an award?!), this does not surprise me as it was EVERYWHERE: All. Of. The. Bloody. Time. Therefore, lots of people must have liked it, but then again Bieber’s Baby is the most viewed youtube video of all time; popularity evidently means nothing. Awful, as in the ‘burrows into your mind, gnaws away, and won’t get out for three torturous days’ type of awful.

9. You Look Wonderful Tonight, Eric Clapton. Absolutely ridiculous song. The lyrics are the worst kind of drivel, like a Jennifer Aniston rom-com. Clapton’s voice is no better. I think 90% of all weddings I’ve been to have had this as the first dance song. That means those couples actually chose it. I’m going to attribute that fact to laziness or that they were too bust fretting over what colour napkin to choose, or if Mary, the groom’s second cousin twice removed they haven’t seen in seven years, will be offended when she isn’t invited, or some other puerile wedding nonsense.

8. And If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next, Manic Street Preachers. This is an example of what I was talking about above – a song by a generally solid band that, for some unknown reason, makes you want to fall to the ground and roll around screaming “Why, WHYYYYYY?!!” It gets stuck in my head like no other song I’ve ever come across. Ever have a song stalk you? Well this did once. It was a dark time; I don’t like talking about it. If you want a better example of the Manics’ talent, listen to A Design For Life. 

7. Hips Don’t Lie, Shakira. I loathe this song. It’s another one that was inescapable when released and that still crops up far too often. It has 59 million views on youtube; I hope that most of these were by people who wanted to see her, admittedly, rather lovely (and apparently very truthful) hips, or Wyclef Jean doing a tragic job of pretending to play guitar whilst making sure to get his obligatory refugee reference in.

6. You’re Beautiful, James Blunt. When the third line of a song is “I saw an angel, of that I’m sure,” you should know it’s going to be bad. This is surely one of the biggest piles of insipid, soppy, pathetic whingeing ever created. I remember people raving about how pure and simple it was at the time; simple is right, it’s practically the same bloody line repeated over and over again. I also recall thinking that Blunt must be an enormous, uninspired prat to write such bull; then I saw him on Top Gear and he was bloody hilarious! Who ever would have thought? And he was intelligent AND in the army?! I’m sure his comrades appreciated his jokes much more than his music… (Note: This is the album version of the song and contains the F word: that does not make it any cooler.)

5. When You ‘Shay’ Nothing At All, Ronan Keating. I used to adore Boyzone when I was little and Ronan was completely fine back then. However, he apparently decided that when he went solo he needed a new “edge” to his voice. By edge I mean an incredibly annoying, falsified Nashville-style tone and adding “sh”s left, right, and centre (e.g: “besht”, “shay”).

Notting Hill is one of the few romantic comedies I like but this ‘shong’ ruins one of the key moments. At least I think it is a key moment – hard to tell when it’s muted…

4. The Song That Doesn’t End, Lamb Chop’s Play Along. I remained blissfully unaware of this song’s existence until about five years ago when my boyfriend started singing it in the car. It almost caused a break-up. I still haven’t forgiven him for introducing me to it. The top youtube comment sums it up perfectly: “Demons sing this shit in hell.” Listen at your peril.

3. Dirty Bit, Black Eyed Peas. I very rarely listen to the radio anymore because it’s basically just ads and songs that I don’t like very much repeated to death, so I generally manage to escape songs like this. The first time I heard it was in a nightclub I rarely go to and I was actually in shock at how ear-achingly atrocious it was. Autotune at it’s absolute worst. It has 129 MILLION youtube views, Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower has 3 million. I have very little faith left in humanity…

2. That’s Not My Name, The Ting Tings. Anyone that calls their band The “Ting Tings” shouldn’t be allowed near a recording studio, especially if this song is what they’re planning to inflict upon the poor, unsuspecting world. I’m also pretty sure that the singer will have since been called a lot worse than Stacy or Jane. Absolutely horrendous. If you haven’t heard it, DO NOT LISTEN – you will never be able to un-hear.

1. I Believe In A Thing Called Love, The Darkness. This is the worst song of all time. It

"....A THING CALLED LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE, OOOOOOOH....GUITAAAR!"

shouldn’t even be classified as music, it should be called something like ‘toxic radioactive slurry’ to prevent people from ever going near it. Justin Hawkins should also carry that label; he’s like an even creepier version of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Matt Bellamy and Freddie Mercury prove that men can falsetto without sounding like castrated cats; Hawkins’ falsetto makes me want to scrape my eyes out. I can’t adequately put my dislike for this monstrosity into words so I’ll stop there. (Apparently The Darkness have recently reformed; fear for your ears people.)

Hawkins' attempts have angered the falsetto gods (Photo: www.muse.mu)

The Ultimate “Let’s Pretend It’s Summer” Playlist

What our weather should be like right now

So, it’s been raining here in Ireland almost non-stop for the past five days; there were even hailstones the size of Kong marbles (those were the big ones, remember?) falling on Thursday, followed nicely by two hours of deafening thunder and rounded off with roof-tile rattling winds in the evening. We Irish are usually permitted to have sunshine from early May until mid-July but apparently we’re not deserving of even that this year. This is also the first year in six that I will not be heading abroad, which makes the grey outdoor ceilings and Nordic temperatures all the more difficult to bear.

What our weather is actually like right now. 

So, when I was perusing the NME website the other day and saw the list; “The 50 Best Summer Songs Ever!”, I immediately felt like leaving a snarky comment telling them where they could shove their sunny, smiley, frozen cocktail and beach image-summoning tunes: have they not looked out the window? It’s no more tropical in the UK than it is here! However, I love lists: I love making them, reading them, judging others’ and comparing them to my own… Who doesn’t love a good list in all fairness?! For that reason, I couldn’t resist going through all 50 NME-chosen summer “must listens”.

Ok, the verdict: is the list any good? Well, let’s just say that whoever was responsible for its compilation appears to have simply gone and typed words like ‘summer’, ‘sun’, ‘beach’, and ‘surfing’ into youtube, Spotify or whatever, and concluded that as long as the song title had a summery connotation, then it deserved to be included. Eh, no. Just no.

The list isn’t all bad. There are some definite gems that were literally made to be listened to when outdoors on balmy July evenings, ice-cold Corona in hand, whilst the aromas of BBQ’d sausages and end-of-day honeysuckle-tinged heat drift through the twilighted air. Such songs are; Arctic Monkeys’ Hellcat Spangled Shalalala, Dandy Warhols’ Bohemian Like You, Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition (despite it being played to death last year), Wake Up Boo by the Boo Radleys, The Coral’s Dreaming of You, Phoenix’s Lisztomania (Phoenix are quite summery all-round, check out Rome), and A-Punk by Vampire Weekend. (Note: not a single mention of sun or summer required in any of those titles to make them summer-worthy!)

Perhaps the most bizarre claim in the article was that “no summer playlist is complete without some Frank Sinatra”. Sorry, what? Maybe if this was 1955, yes, but Old Blue Eyes an essential summer sound? I really don’t think so. But each to their own!

Essential summer listening? Don't think so, NME.

Do check out the NME list if you have time, there are a lot of feel-good tunes on there once you get past the profusion of clichés. Admittedly, some of the clichés are fantastic but the folks at NME really could have tried just a little bit harder to be a tad inventive…or to not be so blatantly lazy.

Here are some of my own personal summer essentials that didn’t make the list. Although that’s not really surprising seeing as none of them have excessive summery vocab in their titles!

Guide to Listening to Summer Songs

• If you’re lucky enough to be somewhere that is actually abiding by the seasons, head outside, grab a deck chair or a comfy patch of grass, some cold beer and enjoy the sounds below.
• If you’re like me, however, and stuck in a depressingly summerless warp zone, simply concoct some soul warming spirit-loaded cocktails with pretty little umbrellas (v.important); then whack up the central heating, put on some suncream for that holiday aroma; blast the songs below, and allow yourself to be carried away in a cloud of glorious summery pretense. (Or, if you can’t be assed, simply enjoy the songs – they’re good enough on their own )

-> Hawaiian Air, Friendly Fires: Brand new release; totally wonderful and my self-decided song of the summer.

-> La Primavera, Sash: Reminds me of summers in the 90s – back when they were actually summers. With sun. And heat… (Insert lengthy sigh here).

-> Bubbles, Biffy Clyro: Surprisingly light and bouncy brilliance from the lovely Scottish rockers.

-> Wipeout, The Surfaris: A song that brings surfing and Dirty Dancing to mind must be a thoroughbred summer triumph.

-> I Want To Hold Your Hand, The Beatles: My favourite summer-feeling Beatles’ tune.

-> Pure Shores, All Saints: try not to think of a tropical beach whilst listening to this: I double dare you!

-> Cherry Cola, Eagles of Death Metal: Very fun song about my favourite type of Cola that features epic guitars, Josh Homme, and the word razzamatazz – what’s not to love?!

-> Big Me, Foo Fighters: rare example of light and breezy jocularity from the usually heavy-hitting Foos. The video is brilliant, especially Pat Smear’s sparkly purple shirt.

-> All Along the Watchtower, Jimi Hendrix: NME’s list totally lacked in decent guitar music. A summer wouldn’t be summer for me without some epic, trippy shredding in the background at some point and why settle for anything but the best?

-> Going to California, Led Zeppelin: Listening to this while driving down the breathtaking Coastal Highway 1 in California was one of the few truly perfect moments in my life.

-> Knights of Cydonia, Muse: Because nothing screams “SUMMER!!” like a slice of Spaghetti Western riffing desert space rock; right….? Oh well, it does for me!

-> Seaside Rendezvous, Queen: 1930s style seaside campness from the only man in rock who could get away with it; Mr Mercury. Totally trivial holiday merriment from the mighty regal quartet.

-> Make It Wit Chu, Queens of the Stone Age: Because we need a sexy summer steamer in here and this out-steams everything. Yes, everything.

-> American Dream, Jakatta: Beautiful sounds; this instrumentally embodies summer.

-> Naked In the Rain / Zephyr Song / Universally Speaking / Road Trippin’, Red Hot Chili Peppers; Sorry, I couldn’t choose! :-/ All completely different in mood but all are definitive summer tunes for me. (I was at the concert in the video: absolutely unforgettable)

-> I Can See Clearly Now, Jimmy Cliff: Wonderful upbeat Jamaican joviality.

-> Bellissima, DJ Quicksilver: Every holiday needs some classic dance.

-> Porcelain, Moby: Conjures up images of far-flung, pristinely perfect beaches.

-> Good Vibrations, The Beach Boys: Every Beach Boys’ song could go into a summer playlist and totally belong there, unlike Sinatra, but this is my absolute favourite.

-> Fantasou, Terzis: An incredible traditional Greek song that will perpetually hold some of the best summer memories for me. If you’ve ever been to Greece, you’ll (hopefully!) appreciate this.

Music By Numbers

Ok, bit of a random post here. My iPod was on shuffle and by complete chance, three songs that had numbers in their titles came up in succession. I then decided to scroll through my library to see just how many songs I owned that had a numerical feature; as you might have gathered, I was rather bored…! Anyway, there was actually a surprising amount! And not all were conveniently listed under the # symbol thanks to some bands insistence on spelling the number – fiercely irritating . Anyway, I ended up compiling a list of ten of my favourite tracks that include numbers in their names and, well, they actually added up to become quite a randomly appealing and nicely varied selection! In fact, I liked it so much that I decided to share it here:

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels), Arcade Fire 

’39, Queen 

Nothing Compares 2 U, Sinéad O’Connor 

2 + 2 = 5, Radiohead 

3′s & 7′s, Queens of the Stone Age 

Seven Nation Army, The White Stripes 

Uno, Muse 

57, Biffy Clyro 

Zero, Yeah Yeah Yeahs 

One Hundred Days, Mark Lanegan 

Who Said The Original Is Always Best?

The original is always the best, right? Well, maybe that’s true when it comes to certain things; Coca Cola, Fabergé Eggs, Buffalo Mozzarella, ancient sculpture, designer handbags… However, I have found that songs are something that do not always* slot into this category; please see below for proof!
-> I’m not including The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s version of Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower because it’s too peerless to put in a list; it is the unequivocal best cover ever.
(*Disclaimer: covers are obviously not always better. See the horrifically insipid version of Hendrix’s Little Wing by the Corrs, or Guns n’ Roses’ misguided foray into James Bond theme cover versions with Live and Let Die, which is exactly what they should have done.)

Five “Obliterating the Original” Cover Versions: 

5: Love, Sex, Magic. Original by Justin Timberlake and Ciara, covered by Biffy Clyro. Ok, let’s face it, this wasn’t a very difficult song to improve upon. However, the usually hard-rocking Ayrshire trio outdo themselves with an acoustic rendition that’s gentle, inventive, and well, rather seductive, and all whilst displaying their wonderful Scottish sense of humour! Check it out: in the words of lead singer Simon Neil, it’s “lovely, sexual, and magic”!

4: Tutti Frutti. Original by Little Richard, covered by Queen. The original of this is, of course, much better than the original of the song above. The self-claimed “architect of rock and roll” wop-bam-a-loo-bops his way through it as only he could and Elvis later made an admirable attempt. However, it was at Queen’s spectacular Wembley gig in 1986 that this song was given an absolutely majestic overall. Starting off easy and building to a hard-rocking finale, Queen filled the legendary stadium with re-worked 50s magic as only they could. (I particularly love Roger Taylor’s dash to the drums at 1:12!)

3: I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself. Original by Tommy Hunt and Bacharach. Made very popular by Dusty Springfield in 1964, and covered by The - now lamentably disbanded - White Stripes in 2003. I suppose the original has a certain charm about it, even though I have never been too keen. Then Jack White came along and blasted aside the charm and the 60s cobwebs with sheer mind-altering force shooting from his six strings, re-working it into what will surely remain one of the most epic cover versions of all time.

2: Feeling Good. Original by Nina Simone, covered by Muse. Muse are my favourite current band. However, bias isn’t why they have been placed at number two on this list. They are here because their version of Feeling Good is mind-blowingly amazing. I have seen it top several “Best Cover Versions of All Time” lists (see, I managed to resist doing that!). Featured on their 2001 album “Origin of Symmetry”, it has since become a live staple. Despite us “Musers” bemoaning this – overkill is never a good thing – the studio version is still a favourite due to its fervently raw, angsty tone that is ingeniously at odds with the breezy, nature-appreciating lyrics. A master class on how to do a cover. (Muse sued Nestlé for using their version, without permission, in a coffee advert. They won and donated the settlement to Oxfam.)

1: Where Did You Sleep Last Night. A traditional 19th century American folk song. Popularized by Lead Belly in the 1940s; made iconic by Nirvana in 1993. If I have a niggling feeling that a folk song shouldn’t really work when covered by a grunge group, I have a very pronounced feeling that it certainly shouldn’t be this phenomenal. This song blows me away every time I hear it. Recorded during the pretty perfect MTV Unplugged Session, it shows Kurt Cobain at his finest. Dave Grohl has said that the acoustic style of the set was a direction that Nirvana were seriously contemplating and experimenting with. We will, regrettably, never get to hear what that would have been like but at least we can eternally console ourselves with this:

A Single, Beautiful Song For A Melancholic Day

I’m in a wistful, melancholic sort of mood today. I can’t really figure out why; there’s no real reason I can pinpoint. Perhaps it’s the strange lunar activities – or me just being my emotionally-inclined self! Anyway, regardless, I thought I would share this song as it matches my mood perfectly. It’s called The Time Has Come Again, by The Last Shadow Puppets, and it is absolutely flawless. The band is a side project of Arctic Monkeys frontman, Alex Turner, and his friend Miles Kane. They are a dream pair who, in 2008, released one very beautifully created, modernly vintage, perfectly formed album entitled The Age of Understatement. If you haven’t heard it, I would highly recommend a listen to anyone, regardless of your musical taste: I guarantee it will pull on at least some heart strings…

If you liked the above, other highlights of the album are; Standing Next To Me, The Age of Understatement, and the utterly gorgeous My Mistakes Were Made For You.