The Little Mermaid composer Alan Menken said he and Lin-Manuel Miranda tweaked some of the lyrics to at least two songs carried over from Disney’s 1989 animated film. “Kiss the Girl,” written as a song to encourage Prince Eric to show his affection towards Ariel, was changed to make it sound less like Eric should “force himself” on the mermaid. “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” the show-stopping song sung by Ursula to convince Ariel to take a bargain with the villain, was also changed.
“There are some lyric changes in ‘Kiss the Girl’ because people have gotten very sensitive about the idea that [Prince Eric] would, in any way, force himself on [Ariel],” Menken told Vanity Fair in an interview published on March 31. “We have some revisions in ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’ regarding lines that might make young girls somehow feel that they shouldn’t speak out of turn, even though Ursula is clearly manipulating Ariel to give up her voice.”
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Menken, 73, wrote the original score for The Little Mermaid and the music for the songs featured in the 1989 film. The late Howard Ashman, one of the major driving forces behind the entire movie, wrote the lyrics. Ashman, a co-producer on the animated Little Mermaid, died in 1991 at 40.
The new live-action version of The Little Mermaid features additional songs Menken wrote with Lin-Manuel Miranda, including “Whild Uncharted Waters,” which was written for Prince Eric. There is also a new song for Ariel when she receives her legs, and another one called “Scuttlebutt” for Scuttle and Sebastian. They also wrote “Impossible Child” for King Triton, but it was deleted. They considered using “Her Voice,” a song performed in the Broadway musical, but director Rob Marshall instead wanted a new song.
“Rob really wanted a new song for this moment of waves and all the wildness of what’s out there in the ocean,” Menken told Vanity Fair. “[Ariel] represented that to [Prince Eric]; she being the girl who saved his life. Live-action films are really a director’s medium. They want to go back to what they saw in the animation and take it fresh from there. That seems to be the pattern and I go along with it. Besides the fact that clearly, everybody wants a new song for the live-action film for awards consideration.”
Miranda is a self-professed fan of Menken’s work, but Menken said he learned much from working with the Hamilton writer. “It was a very freeform collaboration,” Menken said. “One reason people will work a lot is because they’re adaptable. I like to be in the room with whoever I’m working with and start from scratch to get the essence of what that collaboration will be.”
The live-action take on The Little Mermaid opens on May 26. The script was written by David Magee and Marshall, Miranda, John DeLuca, and Marc Platt are the producers. Halle Bailey plays Ariel and Jonah Hauer-King plays Eric. Daveed Diggs voices Sebastian and Awkwafina voices Scuttle. Jacob Tremblay voiced Flounder. Javier Barden plays Triton, while Melissa McCarthy is Ursula. Noma Dumezweni plays Eric’s mother, Queen Selina, who was not in the 1989 movie.
