What if the lion kings songs were written by howard ashman?

[Elton John]

For those of you who don't know howard ashman was a brilliant lyricist who happened to write the songs for the little mermaid, beauty and the beast, and three of the songs for aladdin. Tim rice, the lyricist for the lion king wrote the rest including "A whole new world"

Howard ashman died in 1991.

I'm a bit curious as to what the music would be like if howard ashman lived long enough to do the lyrics for the lion king

As much as i love tim rice, howard ashman was better.

[TheLionPrince]

Good question! I always wondered the same thing. Honestly, I don't think Howard Ashman would have wrote songs for The Lion King since a greater division of the Feature Animation staff wanted to work on Pocahontas rather than King of the Jungle (as it was called back then) after it was separated into two divisions when work on Aladdin was commencing by mid-1992. Because of Beauty and the Beast's nomination for Best Picture at the Oscars, the staff and upper management thought Pocahontas (being a sweeping romantic film) was the more prestigious project to work on. This is reinforced since Alan Menken went on to work on Pocahontas after he was finished with Aladdin. It is unlikely Ashman would have separated from Menken given they worked together since the late 1970s.

However, if he did, the lyrics would have been more wittier and clever. I'm not sure what musical trend he would have taken since he modeled the songs on Little Shop of Horrors, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast on early 1960s rock and roll, doo-wop, and early Motown music, calypso, and Broadway respectively. Not to mention, Howard was more than just a lyricist; he was a storyteller. There's no doubt he would have contributed story suggestions that would have produced a slightly different film than the one we have today.

[Elton John]

I agree that his lyrics are wittier but i have to wonder if the compositions would have been nearly as good without hans zimmer or elton john.

Hans zimmer did the score for a film called the power of one, which is why he was chosen to do the score.

Elton john himself, to be frank, is superior to alan menken. ej's most famous song "your song" is gorgeous. His cover of lucy in the sky with diamonds, nikita, levon, daniel, don't let the sun go down on me, goodbye yellow brick road are all gorgeous. He was chosen because he was skilled at what he did.

[TheLionPrince]

While I was looking through news articles about the Disney animated features published during the 1990s, I recently came across this article on Tim Rice talking about his work on Aladdin, the twentieth anniversary tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, and future projects. Then, I stumbled upon this statement:

[quote="The Baltimore Sun"]
Compared to these hard-hitting subjects, "Aladdin" seems like, well, a cartoon. But even though he's a lifelong fan of animation, Rice found he faced a brand new set of challenges when Disney invited him to complete the work composer Alan Menken had begun with Howard Ashman, who died of AIDS in March.
"In theater," he explains, "if you write a great song, you can stick it on stage for eight minutes and bring it round three times. In animated film,in any film, but particularly in animated film, you really have to have something visually happening for every second. You can't just close in on somebody singing. This means in general the songs were a lot shorter. Almost every line had to be considered in visual terms."

Furthermore, Rice -- who had only met Ashman briefly, before the British opening of the latter's hit stage show, "Little Shop of Horrors" -- felt obligated to try to write in the late lyricist's style. Two factors made this a little easier. "In a funny way, Howard and I had a similar sort of approach to things," Rice explains. "I remember when I saw 'The Little Mermaid' [Ashman's first vTC animated feature], I thought: This is the same sort of feel 'Joseph' had."

In addition, he says, "I was writing for characters Howard had not written for. Howard's two big numbers are both the genie's. I didn't have any genie songs. I had to write the romantic love songs and a sort of plot-escape song. The only one I had which was a tune Howard had worked on was the reprise of 'Prince Ali.' "

Fortunately, Rice also found it easy to work with Menken and hopes to do so again soon. "There's a plot afoot to take 'Beauty and the Beast' to Broadway, which means additional songs," he says, adding that Disney would like to produce the stage version as soon as next season.

Another animation

In the meantime, Rice is working with Elton John on a new Disney animation called "King of the Jungle," about a lion cub. The collaboration has necessitated a slight change in Rice's modus operandi. "Elton is one of the few composers who prefers to get the lyrics first," he explains. "Elton writes the tunes, then I make such stringent changes, it's only a crafty way of getting ahold of a tune."[/quote]