captain_slinky | Top 5: Disney Squee Songs And Their Origins

Because of reasons, I have decided to make a list of my Top 5 "Disney Squee Songs". I love ALL Disney songs, don't get me wrong... but THESE FIVE are the ones that make me drop EVERYTHING so I can just listen along and be transported back in time to a specific moment of sheer joy and wonder.

5) WINNIE THE POOH

I want to say that it was maybe 1977 or 1978 that my Grampa bought me one of those huge collections of "Disney Book & Record" sets from the JC Penny Holiday Catalog (or possibly the Sears Wishbook), FIFTEEN different Disney Classics on little records with fully illustrated books. On side A they had a very nice lady reading the story, and on side B they had the conclusion of the story AND, if you were lucky, some music. "The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh" had just recently either been on TV or maybe they talked about it on some show or something, but the timing was just right so that my preschooler brain knew that THIS was IMPORTANT. This was the most listened-to out of all the records :)

4) MICKEY MOUSE CLUB MARCH (1970'S VERSION)

Just like the original, only this was *my* version. All disco and jazzy, it seemed like I only ever got to see this on the rare Saturday mornings when we would visit Grandma Jenkins. The original Mickey Mouse March is awesome, but THIS version takes me back to dancing around the living room with my older cousins :)

3) THE MAD TEA PARTY RIDE SOUNDTRACK

THIS is the happiest sound IN THE WORLD. This is the sound you only hear once you've made it in to Disneyland, made it past the initial shock of "OMG WE'RE HERE", made your way down Main Street, crossed the drawbridge, wandered through Fantasyland a little bit, and then... TEACUPS OMG WE'RE IN DISNEYLAND!!! It's the Disneyland Booster Shot. and the sound we associate the most with Disneyland :)

2) THE BALLAD OF DAVEY CROCKET

It was hard to put this one above The Mad Tea Party, but this one was important. In that stack of 15 Book -N-Records my Grandpa gave me was one of Davey Crocket. I didn't much care for the story side, but the MUSIC side? This song is just danged CATCHY. But the reason it ranks so high is because while I listened to it over and over again, my Mom told me all about how it was a HUGE HIT when she was a kid... and that was a real eye-opener. It was the moment where I became self-aware, I guess? The moment where I realized that the world was around long before me and would be around long after me. Pop-culture had been building up to *this moment*, to ME, and if THIS artifact of years gone by was so awesome what ELSE could be great? And so at the tender age of like 4 or 5 years old, I started my obsession with The Recent Past. New cartoons were okay, but the ones frm the 40's and 50's just blew me away! Old movies, old TV shows... forget The Six Million Dollar Man, 5-year-old me would rather watch The Beverly Hillbillies and an old Shirley Temple movie!

1) YOU CAN FLY!

When I fell in love with this song, I had never seen or even heard of Peter Pan. It was the last track on Side B of some "Disney's Greatest Hits" LP that was purchased at a garage sale by my mother for me based upon the popularity of the Book & Record sets my Grandpa had bought me. Unlike the little records with their 5-minutes per side, though, THIS record had about a half-hour of music per side - just enough to put me asleep by the end of Side B. And so it was that the vast majority of my childhood was spent being lulled to sleep by this song. The chorus sound they get just always, ALWAYS makes my eyes go big and my smile go wide :)