Lin-Manuel Miranda is "very proud" of a ballad he's written for ' Mufasa: The Lion King'.
The 44-year-old composer has written the soundtrack for the upcoming Disney prequel and wanted to pen a song that lived up to the standard of Sir Elton John's 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight?' from the original 'Lion King' and Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson's 'Beauty and the Beast' theme, and thinks he's managed to his his target.
He told The Times newspaper: "There is a ballad that I’m as proud of as anything I’ve written...
"The Disney ballad collection is an intimidating set of tunes. I’m very proud of my entry into the canon, but that might not be at all what people take away.”
But Lin-Manuel admitted he has been surprised in the past with which of his songs have proven popular, in particular 'We Don't Talk About Bruno' from 'Encanto', which has notched up more than half a billion streams on Spotify.
He said: “I remember my son getting off the bus at school and being, like, ‘Daddy, everybody’s singing it. What’s going on?’”
Attributing its success to TikTok, he explained: "When you listen to it in 15-second clips, it’s 10 songs. It was uniquely suited for this technology and people went crazy with it.”
The 'Moana' composer was sent the script for 'Mufasa: The Lion King' by director Barry Jenkins and not only was he "surprised at every turn" by the story, he knew instantly where the musical numbers would fit.
“We all think of Mufasa as the super dad who lives in the clouds and sounds like James Earl Jones. Like, what’s to tell? But the Mufasa I met in that screenplay was so different from that, and his relationship with his brother was really interesting and not at all what I expected.
"And in reading that screenplay, I was kind of circling the song moments — it was just really clear what the songs needed to be. Maybe I was just in the zone because I was still finishing 'Encanto' [at the time].”
Lin-Manuel didn't get to fulfil his "dream" of writing a song for Beyonce, who voices Nala, Simba's wife, as she only has a speaking role in the prequel, but there were other cast members he was excited to write for.
He explained: “The folks I was most excited to write for were the ones I knew, which were Anika Noni Rose and Keith David as Mufasa’s parents. Those are Broadway hall-of-famers, Tony winners and just incredible voices.”
And he was blown away by the vocals of Aaron Pierre, who voices Mufasa.
He said: "[Aaron] was a bit like fellow Brit Andrew Garfield: ‘I’m not a singer!’ Then you hear him singing and you go, ‘Yes you f****** are. Who hurt you and told you you couldn’t sing? They should be punished.’
"Obviously, if you’re playing Mufasa you’ve got an incredible baritone already because you’re going to have to grow up into James Earl Jones. But I was so pleasantly surprised by Aaron’s voice.”
