{"id":2322,"date":"2023-09-27T11:42:28","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T18:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/?p=2322"},"modified":"2023-09-27T11:42:33","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T18:42:33","slug":"songs-i-like-under-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/songs-i-like-under-the-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Songs I Like – Under The Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Song: Under The Sea Songwriter: Samuel E. Wright <\/strong>(Originally published October 13, 2014)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometime in late December last year my family and I went to see the movie “Saving Mr. Banks” which was basically the true story of how the movie Mary Poppins came to be.  The most memorable scenes for me were when the two songwriters would come up with these brilliant songs for the movie and performed them for author P.L. Travers, the writer of Mary Poppins.  Travers was a reluctant (that’s an understatement) participant in the whole process, with Walt Disney actually having spent 20 years trying to convince her to let him do the movie around her book.  The songs were an integral part of their attempt to persuade her, and she was a tough customer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disney movies have always had wonderful songwriting, right out of the old world of the Brill Building in New York where songwriters would go to work every day doing nothing more than write and compose.  And even if most of the time these songs were directed more at children, there is nothing “dumbed down” about them.  A great example of this is the song “Under The Sea” from the animated Disney movie “The Little Mermaid”.  “De seaweed is always greener in somebody else’s lake.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This song is a wonderful study in creative lyric writing.  For me, the bridge is especially brilliant;  imagine trying to rhyme all kinds of sea creatures with instruments and creating a whole band out of it!  “What do they got, a lot of sand? We got a great crustacean band!”  It’s not often you see the word crustacean in a kid’s song.  That’s what is also great about this song, as I mentioned before, it doesn’t talk down to kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musically, the whole Caribbean feel is perfect.  The character Sebastian has a Jamaican accent, and the song’s main musical phrase is all steel drums.   It’s in the key of C with a pretty straight-forward chord progression, and in the last chorus, it modulates up for two lines, resolving back down to the original key in a splash (pun intended) of brilliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you haven’t heard it, or can’t remember the last time you did, just listen again and enjoy (lyrics below). ~ IJ<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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