Where Yesterday is Forever

We each have our own way of relaxing. Some of us do exercise, others read books, and for some reason, a number of you are watching Contagion. (I don’t get that, I really don’t. A fine movie, and the absolute last thing I want to watch in the middle of an actual global pandemic.)

I listen to background music from the Disney theme parks. Really. I am aware that this is about as niche as I get. (Though I’m not the only person who likes Disney background music, it’s probably closer to accurate to just insert a GIF of Tobias Funke shouting, “There are dozens of us! Dozens!”) But what can I tell you? Even on a good day, even when I’m not self-quarantining or social distancing, I love the soothing quality of the music of the Disney theme parks.

If I had a favorite set of tracks, it would be the album Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii, by composer George Bruns. If you’ve got a good eye for behind-the-scenes credits on Disney movies, you may know Bruns’ work. Most famously, he served as composer on animated films like The Jungle Book, the opening theme of which is a microcosm of what I love about the album you can listen to above. It’s slinky, seductive, and evocative of a tropical paradise that only exists in your memory.

Not all Disney music is like that, of course; each land of a Disney park has music befitting its premise. Main Street, U.S.A. is full of turn-of-the-20th-century tunes, bombastic American standards, and more. Fantasyland is chock-full of instrumental versions of fairy-tale songs from Disney classics. Adventureland, aside from housing some of the tracks from Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii, has Big Band songs of the 1930s and 1940s in the loops for rides like Jungle Cruise and the Indiana Jones Adventure. And so on.

Disney is not often in the habit of releasing its park music, sadly. In 2005, they released an invaluable five-disc collection compiling the music of the Disneyland Resort, commemorating its 50th anniversary. There are sometimes two-disc albums reflecting the current soundtrack of either Disneyland or Walt Disney World, but if you dig around enough online, you’ll find a treasure trove far beyond any official releases. (I’m unaffiliated with the websites I’m about to recommend, to be clear.)

If you want to listen to Disneyland music, there’s no place better than DisneyChris.com, which breaks down into nearly 30 pages literally hundreds upon hundreds of tracks, with everything from radio ads to multi-hour compilations. You could spend weeks discovering new tracks on this site.

There are some great Disney World tracks, including some thought to be lost forever, at Passport to Dreams Old & New in the Theme Park Music section. Not only that, but the site’s proprietor, FoxxFur, has two truly incredible fan-built albums that serve as a musical “souvenir” of Walt Disney World. It’s only a shame that we don’t have official releases with this level of care and interest. At least some fans are out there doing the work for the rest of us.

Your Recommendation for Today

In another timeline, today was the opening day for Mulan, the latest live-action/CG remake from Walt Disney Pictures of one of their animated films. But of course, in this timeline, Mulan has been wisely moved off the release calendar. (And to anyone who thinks that Disney will place the movie on Disney+ instead of trying to make actual money off of it, I have an orange grove in Florida I’d like to sell you.)

But in the spirit of what might have been, I want to recommend that you head over to Disney+ and watch the one good remake of an earlier Disney film: Pete’s Dragon, from 2016. David Lowery was able to convince Disney to let him remake the mostly (and justifiably) forgotten 1977 live-action/animated musical, with the caveat that aside from the title and basic idea of a kid in the woods living with a dragon, everything would be different.

Pete’s Dragon, the new version, is a much sadder and more perceptive film than its predecessor. Bryce Dallas Howard is delivering her career-best performance as a sheriff whose tenderness of spirit makes her almost angelic even in a small Pacific Northwest town with lots of kind citizens.

It’s not surprising that Pete’s Dragon wasn’t a box-office smash; the film is remaking a title most people have little nostalgia for, and did so with a non-A-List cast. And yet, my hope for Mulan (which I didn’t get a chance to see before the pandemic set in here in the States) is that the Niki Caro-directed film takes the basic premise of a young Chinese woman impersonating a man in the army to save her father from having to serve…and does everything else differently. That’s the implication so far — there’s apparently no talking dragon, no songs, etc. But we’ll see. Eventually.

For now, do yourself a favor: watch Pete’s Dragon. The 2016 version. Thank me later.