This all started when I heard Jackie Chan's Cantonese and Mandarin versions of I'll Make a Man Out Of You. Then I went searching for 1. other Disney songs in Mandarin (mostly from Mulan, but a few others as well) to brush up on the language, 2. other songs sung in the native language of their country of origin, and 3. songs in other more lyrical sounding languages or those languages with certain sounds that would be fitting of certain tunes.
It's a given that the songs from Mulan would sound good in Chinese, so I thought to take a listen to other dubbed Disney songs in Chinese. Not too much success so far, but I can say I have fallen in love with I See the Light in Mandarin. I already love the song as is, but in Mandarin both singers sound amazing and the song actually translates fairly close and very nicely compared to the original English version. A friend of mine mentioned that I See the Light from Tangled has been one of the most popular songs played at weddings as a first dance recently. I won't cave into the cliche of having "our song" be the same as everyone else's song, but she did add if I chose that song as my first dance, I could always choose the Mandarin version instead. Eh, maybe if I marry a Chinese guy, who knows.
So naturally, if the songs of Mulan sound great in Chinese, how about the other Disney movies? So I searched a little bit more, and had the pleasure of listening to songs from Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback of Notre Dame in French, Aladdin in Arabic, Pinocchio in Italian, Jungle Book in Hindi, Lion King in Zulu, Hercules in Greek and Italian (I had to be creative with this one since Latin is kind of a dead language). One of my favorites which I will class in this category for the time being is Friends on the Other Side in French. It is Louisiana, and Dr. Facilier is kind of a hot villain already, so his hot points triple singing in French. Another one, this time one that also hit a tender spot in my heart, is Heaven's Light from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Since I was already on a roll, I thought I would search for Disney songs in other languages, not necessarily just those belonging to their respective geographic regions. For instance, there are no Disney songs that take their origins in Japanese per se, but I do enjoy the sound of Japanese in song and it is probably one of the more lyrical Asian dialects to listen to. Also, thanks to Abed from Community, I have been intrigued with the Polish language (that may be the next one to tackle after Chinese and Korean). I also find Portuguese a beautiful language, and aside from Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros, it does not get too much exposure otherwise. There are also the languages I never thought to hear, like Icelandic, Flemish, Hebrew, among others. It's fascinating to hear the differences in languages and dialects and how they interpret the songs, and even more fascinating to view the cultural differences just in the translation of their lyrics back into English. A few awesome discoveries have resulted: Hellfire from The Hunckback of Notre Dame in German, Be Prepared from The Lion King in Korean, and Poor Unfortunate Souls from The Little Mermaid in Russian AND Japanese. These all coincidentally happen to be villain songs, but on the lighter side, I have found that many languages can rock I Won't Say I'm In Love:
And the highlight of tonight? The original band is back! I did not think I would be as exciting as I am about this; I cannot stop smiling and jumping in my seat.
