Under the Sea
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"Under the Sea" is an Academy Award-winning song from Disney's 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid, composed by Alan Menken with lyrics by Howard Ashman and is heavily influenced by the Calypso style of the Caribbean. The song was performed in the film by Samuel E. Wright.
The song is a plea by the crab Sebastian imploring Ariel to remain sea-bound, and resist her desire to become a human in order to spend her life with the prince she has fallen in love with. Sebastian warns of the struggles of human life while at the same time expounding the benefits of a care-free life underwater.
In 2006, the song was featured in the Square Enix RPG, Kingdom Hearts II. The song, which was part of a minigame in the Atlantica world, was rearranged to have parts for Sebastian, Ariel, and Sora. The music was arranged by Yoko Shimomura.
In 2007, the Broadway musical version uses this as the featured production number with the role of Sebastian played by Tituss Burgess. It should be noted that because Burgess is a tenor (unlike the baritone Wright), the key of the song was raised from A to D.
[edit] Cover versions
It is very often performed by Suburban Legends during their live performances. The band performed frequently at Downtown Disney at the Disneyland Resort in their early years, and still often play at Disneyland's Tomorrowland Terrace.
The song is also covered by the A*Teens for DisneyMania and later by Raven-Symoné for DisneyMania 3. A remix of Raven's version is also featured on DisneyRemixMania.
[edit] Parodies
In 1991, this song was parodied by musician Tom Smith with his song, “On The PC”. This song was re-written in 1999 as "PC99".
The song was parodied on the TV show Kappa Mikey where Mikey tries to convince a squid to live on land with him.
The song was parodied on the TV show Bobby's World as "Underwater the Fish Don't Stink". The context was a dream of Bobby's in which he was a merman -- it turned out he was having the dream because he was sleeping outside and the lawn sprinklers had turned on.
The song was parodies on the TV show The Simpsons in the episode "Homer Badman" in which Homer imagines living under water and eating all of the characters.
The song in part inspired the song "That's How You Know" from Enchanted, which also had music by Menken.
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| Preceded by "Let the River Run" from Working Girl |
Academy Award for Best Original Song 1989 |
Succeeded by "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" from Dick Tracy |
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