I had a feeling it was special,
but the context was Howard had passed away, I was
teamed with Tim Rice, and they said, "you guys should
have a writing session. You go to London."
And I didn't want to just show up there without anything.
And I remember getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning
over there and coming into my studio over here.
I wrote three pieces of music to go over,
when I was going over the Tim's place. One was a song for Jafar
called "Why Me," which did not make it into the movie,
but "One Jump Ahead."
I knew we were losing "Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim,"
but that whole backstreet jazz thing, I said,
that still belongs in this.
And the ballad, the magic carpet ride ballad.
And I sent him dummy lyrics with each of these.
And I remember giving, "the world at my feet
da da da da da..."
And so it became, "A whole new world"
So my first reaction was, oh really, I like da da da da da
da da da da
It worked okay, so we'll keep that.
We lost a syllable.
I'm in Tim's living room and Chris Fontana is there too
and I'm playing...
And you hear Chris say, "god, you could just hear the
hundred strings cranking on that."
And, but when his hair stands on end on his on his arms
just like whoa, and his hair was definitely, you know,
standing on his tippy toes, so we knew there was
something special with this song,
but you never know for sure.
The thing that actually influenced me a little bit was
I listened to some of the work that Tim and Andrew
had done together, and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina"
which was, had those parallel six...
You're flying through this whole thing,
so you want this, that constant sense of...
You just feel that movement. That's physical
as well as musical, as well as, you know, thematic
and and lyrical. It's just a gentle flight that you're on.
But you know, as a writer when I'm wrote that song
I got on the magic carpet, you know, metaphysically.
And when it felt right, you know,
you just go, ya that feels right.
As a composer, you turn on the faucet.
You're not gonna stop the water from flowing. Water is
just gonna come gushing out.
What you gotta do is, you could put your hand under it,
you could catch it in a basin, you could divert it
over there, you can move it.
So, you sit at the piano and you just play...
and at a certain point you go, wait, wait right there
I'm pulling this out of what I just did, I like that.
Thus you get often different styles for different
collaborators because I'm kind of letting
I'm letting the water flow in a certain river,
but I'm gonna pull it in different directions based on my
inner barometer or the reactions of my collaborator.
You know you want to start with, you want to start with
certainly a statement which is simple and direct
and you get the listeners attention.
These are words that will resonate.
I want you now to listen
da da da da da da
and then it builds to this...
A whole new world
You don't have to listen quiet as much
because you're just flying.
If you wanna listen you can, but you
you focus, you know, it's kind of like a tag-team,
the music is taking over.
"Don't you dare close your eyes.
Hold your breath it gets better."
Well we knew it would be a duet
and we tried to figure out how is it going to be a duet,
and rather than having them sing in in thirds and
together having them saying in counterpoint to each
other felt more effective, and it was.
"Every moment red letter."
I love that line.
You want to have that moment where they're now,
the excitement of the two of them is is feeding on this flow of the song.
If you want an audience to cry do not have the character
crying. Have the character smiling.
And remember we changed it for the stage from what it
had been in the movie. You know the new introduction
in the show, into "A Whole New World," is taken from
a million miles away.
We're always connecting the threads.
It's got to feel like new again, as much as possible.
In, the arrangement is, as opposed to, you know,
That's not in the Broadway show, it's now...
"I can show you the world,
shining, shimmering, splendid."
It's that little difference because
now that is built into, actually into the song.
In that sense it's no longer mine, really,
it's mine in the original conception, but it's, you know,
the child has gone out in the world,
and that's happened with so many of my songs.
Very end, I don't know why,
"Now I'm in a whole new world with you"
And it comes back down to earth
"I can show you the world,
shining, shimmering, splendid
tell me princess when you last let your heart decide.
I can open your eyes,
take you wonder by wonder,
over sideways and under on a magic carpet ride.
A whole new world
a new fantastic point of view,
no one to tell us no, or where to go,
they'll say we're only dreaming.
A whole new world,
a dazzling place I never knew.
But when I'm way up here it's crystal clear
now I'm in a whole new world with you.
A whole new world.
That's where we'll be.
A thrilling chase, a wondrous place
for you and me