Part of Your World

"Part of Your World" is a song written by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken for Disney's animated feature film The Little Mermaid. Performed by American actress and singer Jodi Benson in the titular role as Ariel, a mermaid princess, "Part of Your World" is a power ballad in which the main character expresses her strong desire to become human; its lyrics use placeholder names in lieu of several human-related terms that would be unfamiliar to a mermaid. The film's theme song is later reprised by Ariel after she rescues Eric, a human prince with whom she has fallen in love, from drowning.
Directly influenced by Broadway and musical theatre, Ashman strongly believed that The Little Mermaid would benefit from an "I Want" song–a musical number during which the main character sings about what they hope to accomplish by the end of their story. Directors Ron Clements and John Musker originally asked Ashman to write a song for Ariel in which she expresses her romantic feelings for Prince Eric, but the lyricist felt that a song that details the character's fascination with the human world would better serve the film's plot. Ashman recruited Benson, with whom he had previously collaborated on the stage musical Smile, to record "Part of Your World", and worked closely with her to ensure that she delivered a desirable performance. Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg initially ordered that "Part of Your World" be removed from the final film due to concerns that the ballad would bore young children. However, Ashman, Clements, Musker and animator Glen Keane ultimately convinced Katzenberg that "Part of Your World" is essential to the film's narrative, and the song was spared after audiences appeared to enjoy it during a subsequent test screening.
"Part of Your World" has garnered critical acclaim; both film and music critics praised the song's quality and Benson's vocal performance. Several media publications agree that "Part of Your World" ranks among the greatest Disney songs ever written, and credit the success of the ballad with making "I Want" songs a standard component of future animated musical films. Critics have offered various interpretations of the song's empowering lyrics, ranging from seeking independence from overprotective parents to feminism. In addition to becoming Benson's signature song, which she continues to perform live, "Part of Your World" has been covered extensively by several artists of various genres, including Faith Hill, Jessica Simpson, Skye Sweetnam, Miley Cyrus, Bruno Mars, Carly Rae Jepsen, Jessie J, Olivia Newton-John, and Sara Bareilles. Actress Sierra Boggess debuted the song in the stage musical adaptation of the film, for which she originated the role of Ariel. Halle Bailey performed the song as Ariel in the 2023 live-action film adaptation of the film.

Writing and recording

"Part of Your World" was written in 1986 by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken. It was the first song they wrote for The Little Mermaid, although Menken had not officially been enlisted as Ashman's composer when the song was first conceived. Directly inspired by some of Broadway's most successful musicals, Ashman believed The Little Mermaid's story would benefit from a song that serves as its heroine's "inner diary of thoughts". Having always intended for Ariel to perform a song in her grotto, Ashman suggested a song about her fascination with the human world. He explained to the filmmakers that "Part of Your World" would be Ariel's "I Want" song, likening it to moments in stage musicals when the heroine sings about her dreams so the audience can begin caring about the character and her journey. Menken believes Disney had not yet included explicit "I Want" songs in the studio's films prior to The Little Mermaid, making "Part of Your World" the first time one had been written intentionally for a Disney film. However, Disney princesses had technically been singing "I Want" songs since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella. Observing structural similarities between the song and "Somewhere That's Green" from their musical Little Shop of Horrors, the songwriters nicknamed "Part of Your World" "Somewhere That's Dry" because they believe it resembles an "underwater version" of the Little Shop of Horrors song. Additionally, Ashman had written a song entitled "Disneyland" with composer Marvin Hamlisch for their Broadway musical Smile in which a young girl, much like Ariel, sings about regularly watching Disney anthology series as a means of escaping her troubled childhood. Menken identified the musical motif he composed for the beginning of the ballad as his favorite part of the song. Ashman debuted "Part of Your World" for directors Ron Clements and John Musker at his home. Only the directors' second time meeting Ashman and first time meeting Menken, Menken provided the piano accompaniment while Ashman sang Ariel's melody himself, instead of their traditional method of Menken singing lead vocals.
Clements and Musker enjoyed the song but disagreed with some of Ashman's lyrics. Musker specifically wanted to change the line "I wanna be where the people are" because he felt it sounded too political, suggesting that "the" be removed. Ashman insisted that the line remain unchanged to prevent the word "where" from needing to be held longer; Musker eventually admitted his suggestion was "idiotic". Although Ashman typically dismissed most of the directors' suggestions, he agreed to revise lyrics that originally described the contents of Ariel's grotto using eloquent terms such as "fine china" and "books bound in leather and gold", and replaced them with words that would be more familiar to a mermaid who learns about humans from an uneducated seagull named Scuttle. Ashman's revisions integrated funnier lyrics such as "thingamabobs" and "whozits and whatzits" into the song, making "Part of Your World" more consistent with the film's lighthearted tone. He initially pitched Ariel's reprise of "Part of Your World" as a sad lament in which the character sings "I’ll never be...part of that world", but Clements and Musker argued that the reprise should instead convey Ariel's determined nature as she decides to pursue her dream of becoming part of Eric's world. Howard agreed to rewrite the reprise into a more positive anthem that ultimately reads "I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but I know something’s starting right now...Watch and you’ll see...someday I’ll be...part of your world", providing the film with more momentum while establishing further conflict between Ariel and her father King Triton. Ashman's willingness to rewrite both versions of the song's lyrics pleasantly surprised the directors.
Ashman had met actress and singer Jodi Benson while directing her in Smile; she had also performed "Disneyland" in the show. After the production closed, Ashman invited Smile's entire female cast to audition for The Little Mermaid using "Part of Your World", although he did not disclose the name of the project. Ashman mailed a copy of his demo of "Part of Your World" to Benson, to which she listened in preparation for her audition. Benson then recorded a brief sample of the song on a reel-to-reel tape with casting director Albert Tavares, which she mailed to Disney. All audition tapes were left unidentified so that the candidates would remain anonymous to Musker and Clements, delighting Ashman when the directors ultimately selected Benson's tape to be the voice of Ariel, about which she was informed one year after submitting the tape. Her first voice acting role, for which she had to be carefully trained on properly projecting into the studio microphone, Benson found the process of recording "Part of Your World" somewhat difficult after Ashman instructed her to approach it as though she was reciting a monologue as opposed to singing a song. Despite being frustrated because she longed "to sing the crap out of it", she found Ashman telling her exactly how he wanted her to perform his lyrics beneficial to her entire performance. Ashman remained in the recording booth with Benson during the entire recording process, advising her on performing the song with realism and intensity as opposed to belting it and whispering lines to her as she sang them, as Benson sometimes struggled with over-singing. Recorded on August 16, 1989, it was rare for a filmmaker to direct a performer from within the booth, requiring Ashman to move carefully to prevent his gestures from being recorded by the microphone. According to Benson, some of Ashman's breathing can still be heard on the final track. Initially struggling to capture Ariel's "tomboyish-ness and yearning", Benson requested that the studio's lights be dimmed to simulate the feeling of being underwater. Menken and Ashman deliberately selected segments from Benson's recording session that "are not perfectly sung" to include in the final version, ranging from unsustained, incorrect notes lacking in vibrato to spoken words, because the songwriters wanted her performance to sound as "real" as possible.

Context

Background and animation

Although Clements and Musker had originally intended to hire animator Glen Keane to animate Ursula due to his history of animating Disney villains, Keane specifically requested that he be allowed to animate Ariel after hearing Benson sing "Part of Your World" for the first time. Captivated by her performance, he decided to make the scene his most important assignment, volunteering to animate the entire "Part of Your World" musical sequence himself and becoming its lead animator. Animating one particular scene to appear as though the camera is rotating around Ariel while she sings "Look at this trove, treasures untold. How many wonders can one cavern hold?" was particularly challenging for the animators to perfect without the aid of computer animation, taking them considerably longer to complete. Keane described the song as the moment "the audience starts thinking of Ariel as this real, living thing. A girl who's dreaming of something more. And since so many of us feel just like that... that's when the audience falls in love with this character."
Ashman was aware that writing a ballad capable of captivating young audiences during the "modern era" of animation would be challenging. In an effort to keep children interested, Ashman suggested that Ariel should own a grotto in which she hides human artifacts she has collected from various shipwrecks and refer to them throughout the scene. Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg ordered that "Part of Your World" be removed from the film after observing that some children appeared to grow restless during the sparsely animated musical sequence while attending an early test screening of The Little Mermaid. One child in particular spilled his popcorn during the scene, which measured three minutes and forty-three seconds at the time, prompting Katzenberg to worry that children would find the song uninteresting. Bored by "Part of Your World" himself, Katzenberg felt that the ballad only slowed down the film.
Nearly everyone involved in the project protested and defended "Part of Your World"; Ashman reportedly voiced that the song could only be removed over his dead body, delivering an ultimatum and threatening to depart from the project altogether should Katzenberg proceed. Ashman argued that audiences would struggle to "root for" and fall in love with Ariel should the song be discarded. Clements and Musker reminded Katzenberg that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney's first animated film, features a song similar to "Part of Your World" entitled "Someday My Prince Will Come" which ultimately became very successful. The directors also reminded him that MGM executives had wanted to remove Judy Garland's song "Over the Rainbow" from the film The Wizard of Oz until they reconsidered. Keane argued that "Part of Your World" is essential to the film's narrative and eventually convinced Katzenberg to let the sequence remain at least until the film's next test screening, by which time it would be fully animated. Children responded better towards the song during the second screening, some of whom enjoyed it to the point of which they mimed some of its lyrics. The song even moved some older audience members to tears, who ultimately applauded. "Part of Your World" was ultimately spared; Katzenberg eventually admitted that he now feels embarrassed that he had ever wanted to dismiss "Part of Your World", expressing gratitude towards the fact that no one agreed with him at the time because he is now unable to imagine The Little Mermaid without the song.