Strange Things 9: Laughing Sky Edition!

Holy Cheshire Cats, "Beyond the Laughing Sky" is on iTunes! Time for another edition of Strange Things -- Recordings of Disney tunes which are offbeat, rarely heard or performed in unexpected ways. All are available on iTunes and Amazon MP3.

This first one, a stealth release from Disney, is one fans have been waiting for since the days of laser disc!

TRACK: Beyond the Laughing Sky
ALBUM: The Lost Chords: Peter Pan

The Lost Chords are short albums highlighting songs which were not used in the Disney films they were written for. Past releases include songs from Cinderella, The Aristocats and The Rescuers. Each lets you hear the original demo version, followed by a new recording of the piece.

"Beyond the Laughing Sky", however, is a special song--one that forever links the production history of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. If you watched the bonus material on the Alice in Wonderland laser disc or recent DVD releases, you probably know its history. The song was written for Alice, but not used. With a new set of lyrics, the song became "Second Star to the Right" in Peter Pan. Here's a music clip from the video releases, hosted by Kathryn Beaumont, the voice of both Alice and Wendy:

The new recording (by Vangie Gunn) on iTunes is beautiful. If you buy one Disney song this week, this is the one to get. Its history is strange, but its performance is wonderful.

Next up (we've got five picks today): Time for a classic 20,000 Leagues song as sung by a bunch of scallawags...

Stuck on the Nemo Subs

Have you ever been stuck on the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage during a moment of technical difficulities, staring at the same big, ugly fish for fifteen minutes? We have.

We named him Blarg the Magnificent.

Fortunately, once the ride resumed, we had a smooth, Nemo-full adventure with everything working perfectly...until the end, when something else happened just shy of the docks and we had to wait another fifteen minutes. We got to listen to "Beyond the Sea" over and over again.

Bottom line: even though this ate up our "Extra Magic Hour" morning, we all disembarked in a good mood. If we must get stuck somewhere, may it always be in a submarine at Disneyland rather than out in freeway traffic in the "normal" world.