My Lion King Forum

As we all know, The Lion King on Broadway uses a lot of the songs found originally in the Rhythm of the Pride Lands CD. The thing is, the Broadway musical changes those songs slightly so that they have English lyrics that the audience can understand and to fit the plot. But the music, while mostly the same, is also changed slightly.

So the question is: Which song version do you guys like better? The Broadway musical ones or the original Rhythm of the Pride Lands CD songs?

Here are some of the songs: (RoTPL version / TLKoB version)
He Lives in You / They Live in You
Lea Halalela /Shadowland
Lala /Endless Night
One By One /One By One

I tend to prefer the Rhythm of the Pridelands versions as those were the ones I grew up listening to. I used to adore Lala and Lea Halalea as a child and even to this day, they're my favourite songs from that album. I do like the Broadway versions but not as much.

I just realized thinking about it here that for me, I don't prefer the Broadway songs /that they re-wrote to fit the plot/ as much as their Rhythm of the Pridelands counterparts--i.e., Shodowland and Endless Night versus Lea Halalela and Lala. I think I had gotten so used to thinking of them as background/mood music that to hear them with functional lyrics is.....I love both versions of each really, I don't dislike either, but they'll always sound a little forced compared to the RotPLs versions.

(He/They) Live In You and One By One though, I find I like the Broadway versions better. This could be because I've actually seen the Broadway production and the scenes that go with are so powerful/beautiful that they blow RotPL out of the water, or that, like above, unlike being changed to tell a story they always did--so then it's just a matter of, okay the function is the same, which one is more powerful sounding? And "They Live In You" wins hands down against "He Lives In You" in that regard to me. I find it deeper in the TLKoB version. And in the case of "One By One", I think the joy/life/liveliness of the song come across more in the TLKoB version, too.

But that's cool, I actually never thought about it enough to come to conclusion. But that's I think what it is--when they rewrote a mood piece to advance the plot I think it looses a little of it's dreamlike quality (though still very deep and moving songs,) that the Rhythm versions had, but in the case of songs that already had a plot or a purpose, I find the Broadway versions really knock it out of the park.

I prefer the Rhythm of the Pride Lands version because I like the lyrics and it feels more ''Lion Kingy" to me.