DrogeMiesters Top 30 Disney Songs (2017 Update)

Five years ago my roommates and I were up well into the night talking about all things Disney. A very manly thing to do, might I add. This caused me to create a list of my top 30 favorite Disney songs. Granted, that was the first time I had done such a music list and if I'm being honest it was fairly rushed and didn't account for well over half of the Disney songs out there. I just thought of a handful of Disney songs that I really loved and created a list to put out. I posted that on my main movie blog. In fact, it was among the first posts I did on that blog as it was just the third month of that blog's existence.

I've always had a desire to redo that list in a more thorough fashion, but the idea stayed in the back of my mind until last year when I re-watched all 55 movies in Disney's official animated cannon in preparation for my list of my favorite Disney movies that I released last May. Given that all the movies were fresh on my mind, it seems like the perfect opportunity to go back and redo the list of songs as well. However, knowing that "Moana" was coming up late in the year and was to be another full-out musical, I decided it would be best to wait a little longer. But now that "Moana" has come and gone and I've given it plenty of time to simmer in my mind, it's time to dive in and get this done. And what better weekend to release this than on the weekend where Disney's latest live-action remake, "Beauty and the Beast," hits theaters?

Before we begin, some parameters for this need to be established:

1- The songs had to be from a movie in the official Walt Disney Animation Studios cannon. Not Pixar. Not DisneyToon. And not just any movie distributed by Disney. Walt Disney Animation Studios. There is a difference. Sorry "Toy Story," "A Goofy Movie," "Marry Poppins" and more. You weren't eligible for this.

2- The songs had to be specifically written for the movie to be considered. As fun as it would be to include the Elvis songs from "Lilo & Stitch" or something similar to that, that seemed unfair. If they weren't Disney songs first, then it felt wrong to include them. They didn't necessarily need to be sung by a character in the movie and if the song only showed up in the credits that was fine, too. Just as long as they were songs written for a Disney movie.

3- I only considered soundtrack and not score. If I have my musical terminology wrong on that, I apologize. In layman's terms, the songs needed lyrics. Best Disney score would be a fun subject to dive into sometime, but not here.

4- The song had to be longer than a minute. "Alice in Wonderland" and "Winnie the Pooh" are movies that are especially good at having songs ranging from 30-45 seconds long. I disqualified all of those. I preferred longer than two minutes as well so that they were full-length songs instead of instances I termed as brief musical moments, but the cutoff was a minute.

5- Finally, given that there are a lot of great Disney songs that are hard to sort out, I tended to give precedence to songs that were deep, emotional, and had more impact on the plot of the film. Those are the songs that hit me the hardest. But that's not to say there's no place for fun, well-written songs or excellent villain songs. There's plenty of those that were super high. I just prefer the songs that have depth and meaning to them.

With all of that out of the way, let's dive in! As a final note, much like every Disney movie has a passionate fan base that thinks that movie is the best movie, just about every song has a similar fan base that think that's the best Disney song. And given that there's over 200 of them, not every song could be No. 1 or even be included on the list. So don't be heartbroken if I didn't put your song at the top. This is my list. And I went through every movie and listened to every song in each movie, then started a rigorous, complex ranking system to come up with what I considered my personal favorites. And I feel comfortable with what I've come up with, so I hope you enjoy!

30- "Belle" - Beauty and the Beast


29- "The Phony King of England" - Robin Hood


28- "Some Day My Prince Will Come" - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs


27- "Go the Distance" - Hercules


26- "When You Wish Upon a Star" - Pinocchio


25- "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" - Cinderella


24- "I've Got a Dream" - Tangled


23- "Zero to Hero" - Hercules


22- "Heigh-Ho" - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs


21- "Love" - Robin Hood


20- "I'll Make a Man Out of You" - Mulan


19- "Almost There" - Princess and the Frog


18- "Let it Go" - Frozen


17- "Prince Ali" - Aladdin


16- "Part of Your World" - The Little Mermaid


15- "Circle of Life" - The Lion King


14- "God Help the Outcasts" - The Hunchback of Notre Dame


13- "Someone's Waiting for You" - The Rescuers


12- "The Silly Song (The Dwarfs' Yodel Song)" - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs


11- "The Bare Necessities" - The Jungle Book


10- "Little Wonders" - Meet the Robinsons


9- "The Mob Song" - Beauty and the Beast


8- "Savages" - Pocahontas


7- "A Whole New World" - Aladdin


6- "I See the Light" - Tangled


5- "Heaven's Light / Hellfire" - The Hunchback of Notre Dame


4- "Be Prepared" - The Lion King


3- "You'll Be in My Heart" - Tarzan


2- "Beauty and the Beast" - Beauty and the Beast


1- "Colors of the Wind" - Pocahontas