The Villain Song

Unlike the “I want” song and the love song, the villain song hasn’t really been a stable of the movies before the Disney Renaissance. For two reasons. One, a lot of the early Disney movies didn’t even have a proper villain, but instead a string of antagonists or a more abstract kind of evil. And two, in the early days Disney preferred the more menacing villains less flamboyant. It is hart to imagine the Evil Queen or Maleficent prancing around, singing about the devil deeds they plan to do. Or the Coachman doing a little jig with his donkeys.

Only two of those sing more than one line

If one examines the villain songs up to the late 1980s, one can see how the concept developed – as well as the concept of a Disney Villain. In the golden era, the Evil Queen is the only “true” Disney villain featured – meaning a villain who is pinned specifically against the protagonist. All the other movies either use a more abstract as villain like “Man” (Bambi) or the society in general (Dumbo), or they have multiple character’s which serve as antogonist’s but are not pinned against the protagonist specifically (Pinocchio). Sine the Evil Queen doesn’t sing, Fowlfellow’s “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee” is the sole villain song from the era – if you can call it that. It’s more about convincing Pinoccio of something than about Fowlfellow himself, and it is more a fun than a menacing song.

In the silver era, the time of some of the best known Disney Villain’s started. Cinderella’s stepmother, the Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Maleficent are all from this time. But they only have two songs between them, “Painting the Roses Red” and “The Elegant Captain Hook”. There is one notable aspect about those: They are sung by the minions (mostly, Captain Hook has like two lines in his own song). “Painting the Roses Red” serves mostly as an introduction for the Queen of Heart, and “The Elegant Captain Hook” is yet another one of those fun songs in which the villain tries to convince his victims of something.

The first villain with a really menacing song is Cruella de Ville – but again, she is not the one singing. She is in fact not even present when Roger launches in a over-the-top description of her (which ends in laughter).  Madam Mim is the first villain since Fowlfellow who gets a whole song for herself, but it is not particularly menacing. If anything her desire to like everything bad in the word is amusing. I guess Kaa’s “Trust in me” counts as a villain song, but while the hypnotic tone sounds creepy, the scenes in itself are played for fun. Prince John’s “The Phony King of England” even ridicules the villain of the movie. All in all, during Disney’s dark era a villain who sings is not one we take serious. At least until Rattigan turns up on screen.

“The worlds greatest criminal mind” is the first villain song which is:

1. Sung by the villain
2. Menacing
3. in a scene which not played for laughs

Not that it isn’t delightful to see him prance through the room, but the scene as a whole mostly serves to demonstrate how dangerous he is (after all he kills one if his henchmen in-between). And his second song “Goodbye, so long” is even played while the hero himself is stuck in a deadly trap.

But the song which made the villain song a Disney stable was “Poor unfortunate Souls”. Even though Ursula pretends to offer Ariel a reasonable deal, for the audience it is obvious how manipulative and dangerous she truly is. It’s clearly Ashman’s and Menken’s musical experiences which come into play there. And the success of this song prompted Disney to stick to this concept during the 1990s. “Gaston”, “Be Prepared”, “Mine, mine, mine”, nearly every movie from this point onward had a Villain Song (or had one planned which wasn’t used after all). During the late Disney Renaissance Disney tried to shake up things a little bit, though, and the use of the villain song (or songs at all) became a rarity again and is nowadays mostly linked to the Disney Princess Movies (PatF had “Friends on the other side” and Tangled “Mother knows Best”).

The Song though which is the pinnacle of all the Villain Songs is Frollo’s “Hellfire”, and not just because of the impressive music and the use of a Latin speaking chorus. It is a song which allows the audience to delve deep into the psyche of a villain.

“Beata Maria
You know I am a righteous man
Of my virtue I am justly proud”

claims Frollo, but the audience already knows that he is mostly blind to his own sins – the biggest being vanity and self-righteous judgment, which he reveals yet again.

“Beata Maria
You know I’m so much purer than
The common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd”

The song illustrates how Frollo fights with what he perceives as temptation.
“Then tell me, Maria
Why I see her dancing there
Why her smold’ring eyes still scorch my soul”

I feel her, I see her
The sun caught in raven hair
Is blazing in me out of all control

Like fire
Hellfire
This fire in my skin
This burning
Desire
Is turning me to sin

For a short moment it seems like Frollo, for the second time in his life (the first one was after he killed Quasimodo’s mother) fears for his soul…but it’s immediately turned around:

“It’s not my fault
I’m not to blame
It is the gypsy girl
The witch who sent this flame
It’s not my fault
If in God’s plan
He made the devil so much
Stronger than a man

His own guilt is immediately forced away, to Esmeralda (who is clearly the victim in this scenario) and even to God himself. If he allows such a temptation to exist, so Frollo’s crazy reasoning, if he allows devil to wander on earth, it is not his fault that he can’t resist. In he final conclusion he claims that either Esmeralda has to die or to be his and his alone.

Protect me, Maria
Don’t let this siren cast her spell
Don’t let her fire sear my flesh and bone
Destroy Esmeralda
And let her taste the fires of hell
Or else let her be mine and mine alone
Hellfire
Dark fire
Now gypsy, it’s your turn
Choose me or
Your pyre
Be mine or you will burn

God have mercy on her

God have mercy on me

But she will be mine
Or she will burn!  

This song is a disturbing look into the mind of a villain, and the most creepy part of it is the fact that Frollo refuses to see himself as a villain. As fanatic as he is he honestly believes that he is at his core a good man, even though he knows that he will succumb to temptation and do something so deeply wrong. He doesn’t even understand that the “wrongness” in his desire lays not in the fact that Esmeralda is a Gypsy, but in his own obsession.

And this is exactly what a villain should do. It should show cast the character of a villain, his deepest desires but at the same time, it shouldn’t slow the movie down but be relevant to the plot. In this case it is relevant because that’s the point from which onward Frollo looses every bit of inhibition.

Thus said though – I don’t think that a movie necessarily needs a villain song. It is a good addition, but a creepy score works just as well – depending on which kind of villain you want to create. Shan Yu was certainly better off without one. But I can’t help wondering if some of the post renaissance villains would have been more memorable if they had been allowed to express themselves in song.

The Love Song

I originally planned to jump equally around between articles dealing with the specific kinds of songs and those about the use of the songs in one movie. But then I realized that it would be better to first establish a systematic of the songs which can be usually found in a Disney movie. So expect me to tackle this first and discuss complete movies later on.

The love song, though, is different from all the other songs in that it isn’t required to move the plot forward. A love song is in its nature more introperspective, designed to convey first and foremost feelings rather than information. As such, it tends to slow down the movie. That is not necessarily a bad thing, sometimes it is good to put a little breather in an action-packed plot. The best love songs, though, manage to stay relevant nevertheless.

There are basically two kinds of love songs: Those about love in general, and those about the feelings of the specific characters on screen. More general songs have the advantage that they work beautifully even if they are removed from the movie in question. More specific ones do a better job in adding to the plot. The best ones manage a balance.

Bella Notte for example is a very unspecific song:

Oh this is the night
it’s a beautiful night
and we call it bella notte
look at the skies
they have stars in their eyes
on this lovely bella notte
side by side with your loved one
you will find the enchantment here
the night will weave its magic spell
when the one you love is near, oh
this is the night
and the heavens all rise
on this lovely bella note

This is simply the description of a beautiful night which becomes magical because you spend it with someone you love. It does fit what we see on screen, but it doesn’t really add to Lady or Tramps feelings. It works perfectly to capture the mood, but the actual plot development is not what we her, but what we see (the famous spaghetti meal). The song works in the movie because the animation does the heavy lifting while the music serves to establish the mood and tap into feelings the audience might have experienced before. Most of the Disney Love songs work that way, though there are also some more specific. For example “I won’t say I’m in love”.

“If there’s a prize for rotten judgement,
I guess I’ve already won that
No man is worth the agrivation
That’s ancient history,
Been there
Done that”

The whole song illustrates important character development, Megara’s to be precise- While the muses keep telling her that she is in love and should admit it to herself, Megara keeps mentioning the reasons why she shouldn’t be – which boils down to her not wanting to get hurt again.

I thought my heart had learned its lesson
It feels so good when ya start out
My head is screaming “get a grip, girl!”
“Unless you’re dying to cry your heart out!”

But nevertheless, towards the end Megara admits that even though she is not ready to act on her feelings, they are there.

At least out loud
I won’t say I’m in….love

The beauty in all this is while this is very specific about Megara’s feelings, it is not specific about Megara’s situation. It is simply about the feelings of a woman who has loved, got hurt and now has to decide if she wants to risk another heart-break. It’s a situation a lot of woman (and men for that matter) have experienced at one point. In terms of story-telling, this makes “I won’t say I’m in…love” one of the best love songs in the Disney canon.

The “I want”-Song

The “I want”-song is a stable of musicals and has at this point parodied a couple of times. Is it really needed? Yes and no. For a musical to work, you have to convey the motivation of the characters to the audience. You don’t have to do it in song, but then, it is a musical, so singing it is the most logical way to do it.

In Disney movies, the “I want”-song has been a stable long before the studio decided to go full Broadway-style during the Disney Renaissance. Snow White was already intonating “I’m wishing” into her well, and since then, there have been a couple of well-beloved “I want”-songs. Interestingly, none of them ever won an Oscar. Those honours usually go to the love song or the fun song of the movie. A little bit unfairly, since the “I want”-song tends to be the heart and the soul of the movies in question.

Today I want to discuss two examples of “I want”-songs which have been perfectly utilized in very different ways. And I guess, I’ll do it chronologically and start with “A Dream is a Wish your Heart makes”.

Cinderella as a whole does not really have much of a score. Oh, there are a lot of songs, but there are also a lot of scenes in which there is no music at all. There is one theme which keeps turning up, though, and that is the melody of “A Dream is a Wish your Heart makes”. It gets reprised from the off at Cinderella’s lowest point in the movie, when she has lost all hope, and again at the very end when she gets her happy end. The lyrics in itself are simple. “Have faith in your dreams” is the message, “Now matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing the dream that you wish will come true” the promise. It is a (fairly short) song about never giving up hope. And every time it is played in the background, it reminds the audience of the message, which is also the underlying theme of the movie as a whole. Simple, but effective.

Not so simple is “Belle”. Unlike “A Dream is a Wish your Heart makes” this song is very detailed and very specific. It also is an example of “how to establish a whole setting in one song”. “Belle” not only introduces the main character to the audience, in the song we also meet the whole village, the villain and learn everything we need to know about the motivation of half of the cast in “Beauty and the Beast”. Just look at the first passage:

“Little town it’s a quiet village.
Everyday like the one before.
Little town full of little people, waking up to say.”

We are not even fully into the song, and we already get a sense of the village we are about to enter. The use of “little” especially in connection with “people” suggests that we are dealing with a place full of narrow-minded people, something which will be detailed even further when we see them all wrapped up in their everyday business. Belle even comments on it:

“Every morning just the same since the morning that we came,
To this poor provincial town.”

This lines not only make it clear how disconnected Belle feels, it also subtle suggests that she and her father are outsiders in more than one way (note that they also life at the edge of the town and not in the village itself). Belle did not grew up at this place, her point of view is from the get go broader than the one of the villagers, who most likely never left their little space of the world. But we also learn their perspective on Belle in great detail:

“Now It’s no wonder that her name means beauty, her looks have got no parallel.
But behind that fair facade, I’m afraid she’s rather odd.
Very different from the rest of us.
She’s nothing like the rest of us. Yes different from the rest of us is Belle.”

This also introduces the main theme of the movie, which is all about outer beauty vs. inner beauty. Belle is more than her looks, but the villagers would like to reduce her to her beauty. Especially Gaston:

“Right from the moment when I met her, saw her, I said she’s gorgeous and I fell…Here in town, there is only she, who is as beautiful as me. So I’m making plans to woo and marry Belle.”

Thanks to this line the audience knows from the get go that Gaston’s interest in Belle has nothing to do with love and everything with vanity. He is not interested in her, but in getting the “best” available. Not that he doesn’t have other options:

“Look there he goes, isn’t he dreamy? Monsieur Gaston, oh he’s so cute!
Be still my heart, I’m hardly breathing. He’s such a tall, dark, strong and handsome brute.”

Not only do we get the view of the villagers on Belle, we also learn how popular Gaston is, especially with the ladies. Notable is the use of the word “brute”, which does imply that the villagers are well aware how rogue his character is, but for some reason, they consider him desirable nevertheless. Or maybe even because of it.
The song concludes in a big climax, in which all the different opinions and motivations are set against each other.

“[Belle]
There must be more than this provincial life!

[Gaston]
Just watch, I’m going to make Belle my wife!

[Townsfolk]
Look there she goes
The girl is strange but special
A most peculiar mad’moiselle!
It’s a pity and a sin
She doesn’t quite fit in
‘Cause she really is a funny girl
A beauty but a funny girl
She really is a funny girl
That Belle!”

The conflict which will later provide the backdrop for the climax of the movie is already set up in great detail, and everything we learn later about Belle, Gaston and the villagers will built up on it. Just imagine how much time it would have cost to set all this up in dialogue and scenes, without doing an exposition dump.

In conclusion, a well-done “I want”-song is more than just an introduction for the main character, it can be so much more. It can establish the theme of the movie, a conflict, even a whole society.  It can be about general ideas, but also very specific. Well utilized, it is the core of a movie, the base on which everything which comes later is built on. So we shouldn’t joke about the “I want”-song in general. Just about the ones, which are badly done.