Mulan Brings Honor to Its Creators

When Enchanted came out last year, one of the things that excited me most about it was the fact that it would be a musical. I adore Disney musicals, and they've been sorely lacking in that department lately. The '90s was an incredibly rich time for this, however; one of the last in that decade-long winning streak was Mulan, an atypical film about young Chinese woman uncomfortable with the role society is forcing upon her who finds out what she's really made of when she enlists in the army, disguised as a man, to spare her ailing father the duty.

There is great beauty in Jerry Goldsmith's score for the film, with all its rich textures and Asian motifs. Mulan's Decision starts off pensive, with lilting, fluty tones that give way to pulse-pounding excitement as the song progresses. The ominous Attack at the Wall prickles with danger, and intensity builds in The Huns Attack, with its distinct instrumentation and march-like rhythms. Suite From Mulan and Blossoms are both notable for the range for expression and the haunting melodies that linger after the song ends, while the poignantly elegiac The Burned-Out Village is perhaps the most moving of the instrumental tracks.

Ever since Beauty and the Beast, Disney always had to have a radio-ready tune or two to stick with the credits. Here, it's True to Your Heart, a peppy ode to self-assurance performed by 98 Degrees and Stevie Wonder, and Christina Aguilera's version of Reflection, the film's most popular song, performed by Lea Salonga in the movie. Just about all of the songs, composed by Matthew Wilder with lyrics by David Zippel, contain at least a nugget about wanting to be true to oneself, but this anthem really hits the message home with all the power balladry it can muster, making it a song frequently heard in American Idol auditions, teen beauty pageants and the like. "When will my reflection show who I am inside?" It's an intriguing question that plagues many - especially, it seems, teenage girls - and Aguilera sings the heck out of it, though as always, I prefer the in-the-moment movie version.

Eddie Murphy is the chief source of comic relief throughout the film, but Mulan's army buddies offer their share of humorous moments, particularly in A Girl Worth Fighting For, in which the guys enthusiastically daydream about the kind of gal they'd love to have waiting for them when they get home. This lively group song performed by Harvey Fierstein, James Hong, Jerry Tondo, Matthew Wilder and Salonga (who, as Mulan, tries unsuccessfully to convince the lads that smarts and guts are as desirable in a woman as good looks and cooking skills) is rowdy but sweet despite its rather patronizing tone. These guys don't yet realize what Mulan is capable of, nor that she is a woman; when they find out, they'll gain a little better appreciation for womankind. It's a lovely light moment that takes a sudden dip into tragedy as it concludes.

Its bookend song is You'll Bring Honor to Us All, performed by Salonga, Beth Fowler and Marnie Nixon, in which Mulan's mother and various other women try to coach Mulan on the standards of grace and beauty she must adopt in order to score a fine catch of a husband. The accompanying film sequence is both funny and frustrating, since Mulan clearly is not meant for the mold the women in her community try to fit her into. "Men will gladly go to war for you," they tell her; they hope that she will be, as the above-mentioned song states, "a girl worth fighting for." I got flashbacks to this song as I watched the first-season episode of LOST in which Sun, the daughter of a Korean business tycoon, is pressured by her parents to doll herself up for a husband she doesn't want. There's also a hint of Fiddler on the Roof, with all the focus on tradition and matchmaking.

All of the songs are cleverly written and give us good insight into the characters, but my favorite has to be I'll Make a Man Out of You, young army leader Shang's whip-'em-into-shape anthem for his sluggish troops. It doesn't hurt that Donny Osmond does the singing; his voice, as he so amply demonstrated in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, is a powerful instrument, and listening to him belt out this half-snarky, half-inspirational song is almost as good as hearing his wistful tones on Close Ev'ry Door, my favorite Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice collaboration. Osmond conveys a perfect mix of derision and pride as this young man strives to create a cohesive unit and thereby prove himself worthy of his lauded father's legacy. With an irresistible melody and memorable lyrics (, this is the one that will always keep me in the Disney store a few extra minutes if it happens to pop up on the screen just as I'm leaving. "We must be swift as the coursing river... / With all the force of a great typhoon... / With all the strength of a raging fire... / Mysterious as the dark side of the moon."

A stirring movie about a warrior "princess" whose heart and spirit rival Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings, it contains hints of romance but far less than the typical animated Disney feature. The soundtrack accentuates the movie's themes of courage and self-awareness, while the instrumental portions have a unique flavor reflective of the Ancient Chinese setting. Mulan doesn't seem to have achieved quite the classic status of Disney's early-90s batch, but as a movie and as a soundtrack, it's spectacular and well worth a viewing and a listen.

Weird Al Mines Comic Gold Out of Forrest Gump

I've seen quite a few movies in my life, so compiling a definitive list of favorites would be an awfully tall order for me. However, I can safely say that one of the movies that would appear on that list would be Forrest Gump. When it first came out, I didn't pay too much attention, since I thought of it as an adult movie, and I was barely old enough to get in to see it without my parents. Nearly a year later, I'd heard enough about it that I finally went to see it; that it stayed in theaters that long is evidence in itself of its staying power. I saw it. I loved it. We bought it as soon as it came out on video. And shortly thereafter, I was introduced to Weird Al Yankovic and heard his take on this brilliant film.

Before I watched a special comparing the video for this song with the original, I had never heard of Lump, a song by the Presidents of the United States of America, perhaps best known for their catchy ditty Peaches. I wasn't missing out on much. This is one case in which Al's parody makes a great deal more sense than the original, which comes across as pure hard-rocking gibberish.

By comparison, Weird Al's take on the song isn't very weird at all. It's basically a straightforward synopsis of the movie, a song that could be easily turned into a trailer when paired with clips from the film. It touches on several key events and characters without giving too much away. His encouraging mother; "shrimp-lovin'" buddy Bubba; "friend with no legs," Lieutenant Dan; promiscuous childhood sweetheart Jenny and two U.S. presidents all rate a mention. Prominent quotes from the film include "My name is Forrest," "Life is like a box of chocolates," "Stupid is as stupid does" and "Run, Forrest, run" and, the perfect song-stopper, "That's all I have to say about that."

Once you've seen the video of a Weird Al parody, you can't help seeing flashes of it in your head whenever you hear the song. In this video, Al is part of a three-person band jammin’ with percussion and electric guitars, banging their heads to the beat and leaping up, down and every which way in front of a series of Forrest Gump-appropriate backdrops in a frenzy of energy. Sometimes they’re on screen with the confused Forrest look-alike, and sometimes the video intercuts between them. There are brief recreations of some of Forrest’s climactic meetings with historical figures and a deliciously cheesy sequence of him running across a series of landscapes, including the moon. Mostly, though, we see Forrest on the park bench, offering his chocolates to various strangers, each time with disastrous results.

Familiarity with Lump isn’t at all essential to enjoyment of this song, though you’re much more likely to get the most out of it if you’ve seen Forrest Gump. It’s a very fast-paced, hard-rocking song, and generally it wouldn’t be too much to my taste, but it’s far too much fun for me to be turned off by a little cacophony. Anyone who loves the movie as much as I do will probably get a few laughs out of this somewhat skewered ode to one of the sweetest film protagonists the world has ever seen.

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown Most Certainly Qualifies as a Favorite

Years ago, my family and I went to a performance by Christian performer Paul Hill, who performed a number of famous songs that he claimed to have written, at least in part. One of these was Bad, Bad Leroy Brown. He spoke of hanging a gold record on his wall and raking in the money for the hit song but said when his mother heard it, she was aghast at the violent lyrics and insisted he write new words, something nice that she could share with the ladies in her church quilting circle. So he did, and he sang us the result, which as I recall was a song about Noah.

I liked it, and I've tried to track it down since then, but there's virtually no reference to Hill online - and most of the references seem to indicate that he never had a hand in any of those songs he claimed he did. I find it hard to believe someone, especially a gospel singer, would be so dishonest and audacious as to take credit for songs he had nothing to do with, but I've scoured the credits of this song and several others and have never seen his name there, so I'm starting to think he made it up. I imagine he did write the Noah lyrics himself, but if the allegations against him are true, he has no more right to pen such words than I do to twist Jim Croce's tune into a song about curmudgeonly Dr. House.

That was a great concert, so it was disillusioning to find out that so much of it was most likely based on false pretenses. But it makes a lot more sense that Croce would have written this on his own. He was a master singer-songwriter who crafted most of the songs he performed, usually after being inspired by his own life or his keen observation of others. Leroy Brown was a devil-may-care fellow soldier around whom Croce created a scintillating scenario. The fictional Leroy is one mean dude, and he's used to getting his way all the time, but he gets knocked down a peg when he puts the moves on a woman who is spoken for by a pretty aggressive husband.

Croce had a really odd way of enunciating at times, and nowhere is it more pronounced than in this energetic number. The jazzy piano instrumentals fit well with his staccato delivery; he's always dropping articles or the first or last letter in words, which adds to the song's edge. I'm guessing he sang in this way to accentuate Leroy's tough-guy 'tude, and it's one of the song's most distinctive attributes.

It's probably just as well that he truncates his words, making the one dubious phrase in the chorus sound very much like "downtown" instead of the two words it actually is. "Baddest man in the whole downtown" isn't going to set off many alarms - though a tiny bit of bad language shouldn't really rankle that much in a song whose lyrics seem to almost revel in Leroy's bad deeds.

He carries around a gun and razor wherever he goes. He gambles excessively, and, to quote a rather naught John Denver song, he "likes to deal with the ladies." But Croce and his whooping back-up singers are having such a great time singing about him, he seems more hero than villain, and it's a little sad to think of this towering man as "a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone."

In his sadly short career, Croce wrote and sang some of the most tender, sensitive songs ever recorded. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown isn't one of them. But it's absolutely one of the most fun.

*****

I could have sworn up and down that I found this as a single in the database, but when I went to post it, all I could find was Bad, Bad Leroy Brown and Other Favorites, a solid album containing several of Croce's best-known songs. I'm not sure I would quite agree they're all "favorites," but certainly that term applies to the bittersweet Time in a Bottle; the forlorn Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels); the tender I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song; the nostalgic Photographs and Memories and the rollicking Roller Derby Queen, the only track that comes close to matching the pep of the title song.

Also included on the album are the socially conscious, Dylan-esque Which Way Are You Goin'? and Railroad and Riverboats; the self-examining, country-flavored Age and the pleading The Way We Used To Be. Considering the overall tone of the album, it might have made more sense to name it after one of the more introspective tunes, but you can't dispute Leroy's popularity. As a single song or the masthead of a great collection, Bad, Bad Leroy Brown is fantastic.

Clay Aiken Has Come a Long Way to Get to On My Way Here

When Clay Aiken released his last album, A Thousand Different Ways, many complained about its focus on classic love songs at the expense of original music. I had no objection to the direction Clay chose to take there, but it was still exciting to see that the On My Way Here, his latest effort, is made up of new songs. I had hoped that more songs would bear his name in the writer's credits, but at least several seem to have been written specifically for him, and all suit him well.

The collection, firmly in adult contemporary territory, is thematically similar to his previous albums, with plenty of love songs along with some anthems of self-awareness. The titular ballad, perhaps my favorite track, is the strongest example of the latter. It has an autobiographical feel to it, with specific details like the kitchen floor in a childhood home, parents' divorce and an adulthood filled with mobility. Add to that all the hints of adversity and a terrific melody with clever phrasing, and you've got a song with the right message and emotional punch for an American Idol finale number that feels much more intimate than the incredibly catchy but somewhat vacuous This Is The Night.

The Real Me also explores Clay's personal journey, though it's entwined with a love song. This piano-driven track is among the quietest on the album and probably the most emotive. Clay comes across as endearingly shy and geeky here, reminding me of the very young Paul Simon in Just a Boy. There's almost a whispered quality to his voice, and he glides into a gentle falsetto at several points in the song, creating a gorgeous effect.

As Long As We're Here is a love song as well, with a second verse lyrically reminiscent of Billy Joel's An Innocent Man. Urging the object of his affections to give their love a shot despite past scarring, he makes a more general statement in the chorus about making the most of the time we have by focusing on love. Celtic instrumentation gives this song a unique flavor.

Sacrificial Love has Clay questioning the sincerity of his significant other. It's an interesting bookend to The Real Me; instead of being grateful that his girlfriend sees "the real me," he doubts whether he is seeing the real her. I love the melody on this one, especially on the chorus, which in patches bears a slight resemblance to Once's Oscar-winning Falling Slowly, and the violins augment the emotional quality of the lyrics.

Lover All Alone is the sole album offering penned by Clay, along with two other songwriters. Some fans have heard it before, as it was offered as a bonus track on his previous album, but it's a nice inclusion nonetheless, an introspective exploration of loneliness and misplaced affections. I purchased my album at WalMart and consequently received the bonus track Forget I Ever Knew You. It's a nice song, but frankly I find the bonus track trend annoying, as it often means you have to buy the album two or three times in order to get all the potential songs. I haven't heard if there are any other bonus tracks offered at other stores; KMart and Target, for instance, often have them as well. The price is right at WalMart, though; it only cost me ten dollars, well below the advertised price.

Other albums standouts include Everything I Don't Need, whose growly country-rock flavor is unusual for Clay; Something About Us, an incredibly soft and tender love song rich with piano and strings; the guitar and percussion-driven Falling; and Where I Draw the Line, an energetic number that Clay has performed on television to promote the album. There's also rising from adversity-themed Ashes, Weight of the World and Grace of God. The latter is especially nice, as it focuses not primarily on him but on others in this world who are suffering. As a Unicef ambassador and the founder of the Bubel Aiken Foundation, Clay has shown his commitment to relieving the burdens of others as much as he can, so that song serves as a reminder of his dedication.

Clay has been very productive in the five years since he came in second in season two of American Idol. A Thousand Different Ways came out just a year and a half ago, but for devoted fans, that's long enough. May is off to a terrific start for Claymates with On My Way Here.

Weird Al Produces a Twisted Tribute to the Simple Life With Amish Paradise

When my brother Benjamin was in middle school, he discovered Weird Al Yankovic, and he was eager to introduce the rest of the family to this wacky producer of novelty songs. I wasn't convinced. At the time, it was my policy to disapprove of whatever new music Benjamin brought into the house, but gradually he wore me down, getting me to embrace the man who has since become a major inspiration to me in my own parody-penning efforts. Amish Paradise is probably the song that really sold me on him.

That's a bit odd, since I've never had much time for rap, though Gangsta's Paradise is a song I always felt had merit. What really drew me to Al's parody was his subject matter, as I have always had a fascination with all things Amish. My grandparents live near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, so I've seen my share of the long beards, plain clothes, intricate quilts and horse and buggies that are common to these deeply religious, agriculturally-minded people. But I always welcome to opportunity to read a new story or watch a new movie about them, so why not a song?

Granted, Al pokes fun. But he never comes across as mean-spirited, and he packs his song with all sorts of references to the Amish lifestyle. The vast majority of the words are rapped, but he sings the chorus, which, with the exception of a deviation that makes entertaining use of the Gilligan's Island theme song, consists of "livin' in an Amish Paradise" and as many phrases as he can think of that legitimately rhyme with it. There's also a severe-sounding choir that "ah-ah-ah"s at the beginning and end of the song, giving it an appropriate feeling of antiquity.

As with so many of his songs, the video adds a whole layer of amusement. A friend of Benjamin's taped a special that played several Weird Al videos right after the original videos on which they were based, making for easy comparisons. Al incorporates several clever spoofs of Gangsta's Paradise, while still making it entirely accessible to those who aren't familiar with Coolio's video.

Al's ability to manipulate his voice and appearance to suit his songs has always impressed me, and in this video he looks perfectly natural with his long beard, little glasses and black ensemble, complete with hat. I love the little visual details like the man checking his sundial watch and the "How Am I Driving?" bumper sticker on a horse and buggy. Still, it's the cleverness of Al's lyrics that pack the biggest punch. Stuff like "We ain't really quaint, / so please don't point and stare; / We're just technologically impaired" and "So don't be vain, and don't be whiny, / or else, my brother, I might have to get medieval on your hiney!"

The response of the stricken Amish community to the tragic Nickel Mines incident goes to show that retribution probably isn't high on the priority list of most of these people, but other details, such as all the references to raising barns, churning butter, plowing, feeding livestock, creating quilts and studying the Bible, ring pretty true. If you want a respectful, realistic portrayal of the Amish, look to Beverly Lewis or Witness. If you just want a silly reminder of some of the things that make this culture unique, Weird Al is the way to go.