The Second Sense: A Disneyland Playlist, Part 2

The mission: To assemble the perfect Disneyland playlist, referencing every themed land and major attraction, using only songs and instrumental music that a relative newbie to the hobby would be able to readily find. There's no need to dive into limited-edition multi-disc park soundtracks, the “Disneyland Forever” archives, or the murky depths of torrent streaming.*

Last week, I covered Main Street, USA and Adventureland. This week...the mission continues!

“Down in New Orleans”

I firmly believe that part of the reason Disney decided to set The Princess and the Frog in New Orleans was to provide some tie-in material for New Orleans Square. Even if I'm wrong, the fact remains that Disney has a perfect anthem for this part of the park.

“Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me)”

What did I say last time about attractions with their own famous theme songs? This one has been making it onto Disney song compilation albums for decades, and thanks to being sung in snippets in the popular film franchise, it's even recognizable to people who have never set foot in a Disney theme park.

“Swanee River”

I choose this song to represent the winding backstreets of New Orleans Square, with all that great shopping and dining. This recording by the Side Street Strutters has been used on more than one theme park album as a sample of the live music present in New Orleans Square.

“Grim Grinning Ghosts”

Because the Haunted Mansion movie did so much worse than the Pirates movie, this song doesn't have nearly the pop-culture penetration of “Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me),” but it's about equally likely to appear in a Disney song collection alongside the likes of “A Spoonful of Sugar” and “Hakuna Matata.”

“The Great Outdoors”

I introduce Critter Country with a nostalgic throwback to when it was Bear Country, or at least when the Country Bears were still around.** Besides coming from a vintage attraction, this song is basically a love letter to the forest where the critters live, which makes it nigh-perfect for this land in my book.

“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”

You know what's a little strange? One of the most enjoyable and successful Disney songs of all time originated in a movie which the company has disowned. I would wager that the crowd-sung version featured on Splash Mountain is far more familiar to most people than the James Baskett solo from Song of the South, but I couldn't resist sharing the latter.

“Winnie The Pooh”

The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh, the ride, features several songs from The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh, the movie...but how could I choose anything other than the opening song introducing the cuddly title character?

“The Ballad of Davy Crockett”

Did you know the Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes are technically considered to be a Critter Country attraction? If you assumed they were part of Frontierland, you can hardly be blamed. When the area was still part of Frontierland, as the Indian Village, they were called the Indian War Canoes. When the borders were redrawn, the canoes stayed in place with a name change. One of those interesting tidbits of Disneyland history. Maybe they're overdue for another name change? But in the meantime, what better song to assign to them than this 1950s smash hit? And it makes a great segue to Frontierland itself.

“A Cowboy Needs a Horse”

This song comes from a relatively obscure 1956 Disney short of the same name, featuring a button-nosed tyke who falls asleep after a hard day of playing cowboy and dreams of further gunslinging adventures as seen through the lens of innocent all-American childhood. It's the sort of thing that could only have been made in the 1950s and maybe only by Disney. But it is very much in the spirit of Frontierland as it was first built.

“The Three Caballeros”

El Zocalo and its attached restaurant add a bit of Mexican flair to Frontierland. Nothing says “Disney plus Mexico” like The Three Caballeros (well, nothing on this side of the country), and in fact you can sometimes find the eponymous trio doing meet-and-greets in El Zocalo.

“Pecos Bill”

It may not be the focal point of the shows anymore, but the Golden Horseshoe is virtually marinated in references to the “Pecos Bill” segment from Melody Time. Plus it's one of the all-time Disney cowboy classics.

“Just Around the Riverbend”

Pocahontas is an inexact fit for Frontierland theming, but Disney likes to promote it there nevertheless. I will at least accept this song as a good anthem for the Rivers of America, with its lyrical imagery of a river as both a literal watercourse and a metaphor for exploration. The exploration aspect seems particularly apt right now, with the Rivers about to re-open with their new outline and scenery. We'll all be excited to see what's around the riverbend soon enough!

“Dippermouth Blues”

The dock may be located in Frontierland, but the Mark Twain Riverboat is almost more of a New Orleans Square attraction, isn't it? Before the latter was built, the southern area of Frontierland along the waterfront functioned as a sort of proto-New Orleans Square, complete with Dixieland band performances. While the Mark has remained docked during construction on the Rivers of America, it has been the site of the Princess Tiana meet-and-greet. Because of all this, I decided a Dixieland hit would be the best to represent the riverboat, and due to its brief cameo in The Princess and the Frog, “Dippermouth Blues” gets the nod.

“Columbia, Gem of the Ocean”

Okay, so the “Columbia” referred to in this song is a poetic alternate name for the United States, and not the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe. Nonetheless, I cannot resist using it as the song for the S.S. Columbia. It was a candidate for the national anthem during the period represented by Frontierland at large, and “gem of the ocean” is a better epithet for a ship than a nation anyway.

“Mairi's Wedding”

Tom Sawyer Island is still all pirated up, but rather than dipping directly back into the Pirates of the Caribbean well (ride or movies), I offer you this tune. It's not really a sea chanty...but it sounds enough like one that it was added to the background of the Mark Twain soundtrack recording as an audio illustration, of sorts, of Pirate's Lair. I haven't been able to find the specific version used there, which includes a small woodwind like a piccolo or tin whistle, but it's never a bad time to listen to Celtic music regardless of the instrumentation.

“Ballad of Thunder Mountain”

If you didn't know Disney produced a song about Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, I can't blame you—not being featured on the ride itself, it naturally never achieved the same public awareness as the likes of “Grim Grinning Ghosts” or “There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” Also...let's be real, it's nowhere near as good a song as either, or any of the successful attraction themes. But it is about the ride.

Next Week: Fantasyland! Yep, just Fantasyland!

* Count the water words!

** There was a solid two years between the debut of the Country Bear Vacation Hoedown and the name change.