[quote]Creating “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”
“Can You Feel the Love Tonight” is by far one of the biggest songs to be included in Disney's 1994 The Lion King. It went on to be the most played, most remembered song out of all in the movie, and went on to even winning the 1994 Golden Globe and Academy Awards for Best Original Song. Needless to say, this song is quite big. But what can be even bigger? It's production.
In it's very early production, The Lion King was not even meant to be a musical like other previous Disney films. Instead, it was to be a sort of animated National Geographic special without much music at all, if any. And one day, the executive producer Thomas Schumacher sat down with lyricist Tim Rice, and the question came up of whether or not the movie can be a musical. Tim Rice's answer? Anything can be a musical. And with that, The Lion King underwent one of it's first major changes.
From there, Tim Rice suggested to add Elton John to the production team. Almost right away, the rock legend came on board.
The way Elton John creates his songs is by first having the lyrics, and shaping the music that comes to him around the words. And which song was the first one he got the lyrics for? “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”.
Writing the lyrics took Tim Rice about a week to finish. In fact, he promised Elton John that he would finish them on a Thursday, and on that morning, he had yet to finish them. But when the time came for Tim Rice to present the lyrics, he had them ready. Right off the bat, the tune for the song was set. But what was not was the place of the song in the movie, and because of that, the lyrics themselves. Over the course of the production, Tim Rice re-wrote the song roughly fifteen times. What did they have in common? The base tune from Elton John. What did they not? Just about everything else.
As ideas for the plot of The Lion King would change, so would the lyrics as to reflect the change in the song's purpose. These are only some of the changes that “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” would under go through:
-Simba and Nala have just met as lovers versus already being in love
-Simba singing the song to Nala
-Nala singing the song to Simba
-Both signing the song at the same time
-A “heavenly choir” singing the song over the lions
-Simba singing the song to Nala
-Nala singing the song to Simba
-Both signing the song at the same time
-A “heavenly choir” singing the song over the lions
And then came a very funny version, one that utterly horrified Elton John when he found out about it, and would in fact place the song in jeopardy:
-Timon and Pumbaa sing the entire thing
Around this point came one of the most important changes to the song: it was to be left out entirely out of The Lion King. Elton John wrote “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” to be sung by Simba and Nala, and he also knew that it would be one of the most important aspects of the movie. Upon his insistence, the production team reevaluated the song and determined that it would in fact be reinstated into the movie.
So now it was clear that “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” will certainly be in the movie, and all was left would be to polish it up. And the final version, the one heard in the film, actually contains several elements from almost all versions of the song:
Both Simba and Nala get to sing
Timon and Pumbaa start off the song
The main singer is a “heavenly choir” not related to the plot
And then, as a final polish, Hans Zimmer and Lebo M added the African vocals in the background, that while more muted in the movie, can be clearly heard in the soundtrack version. Finally, the song was complete.
So in the end, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” really went full circle with its production. And as a special treat, the full range of changes can be heard in the movie, as long as you watch the ending credits.
In terms of lyrics, the version that The Lion King uses are the very last one, version 15. But Elton John loved the original set of lyrics the best, so the ones the song playing over the credits uses are in fact those of version one, which Elton John wrote his tune to.
After the movie came out, many more versions of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” would be created, some official by Disney, and others not. Some would be created by fans, others by full production teams. One unique version, also made during the production of the movie, would use only the tune and contain no lyrics: Frank Klepacki's song used in The Lion King games released in 1994.
Next time you listen to both versions of the song, compare them and see what was changed over the course of production, and what changed. What was made better? Or worse? Is there anything that is actually better or worse between them?
In the end, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” stands as a very unique song with a very unique history.[/quote]
I really liked writing this because it made me look through all the research material that I had discovered over the course of many years of liking The Lion King and everything behind it. The sources I mainly used are the production videos that can be found on the DVD and the very ones taken out of the Laser Disc version found here on the MLK theater.
