With Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast adding some new original songs to the film, it’s been revealed that the remake of The Little Mermaid is going to have a total of four new songs.
While we don’t have a listen at any of them yet, director Rob Marshall does describe a new song called For the First Time, which will be sung by Ariel and is written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Talking to Empire, Marshall describes the number, “It’s about [Ariel’s] experiences the moment she hits land… We needed to create a number that could almost work as a montage, so we could take her through that experience – coming onto the land, what it’s like to put on shoes, have legs.”
With Miranda behind the song and the montage nature, I can expect that For the First Time is going to be a quick, rap number, but until we get something, all we can really do is wait.
Admittedly, the newer songs that have been added to the Disney remakes haven’t been able to capture the same kind of popularity that the originals have, but I guess that’s the challenge of trying to release them with some very nostalgic tracks. Then again, Miranda has been writing hit after hit for Disney with numbers in Moana and Encanto, so whatever he wants to bring into The Little Mermaid could possibly have that ‘hit factor’ that a lot of fans have been looking for.
Catch The Little Mermaid when it swims into theaters on May 26.
