Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Moana 2’ Songwriters Break Down Film’s Soundtrack
Make no mistake about it, “Moana 2” is a hit.
The Disney sequel set a Thanksgiving box office record with $225 million over the five-day holiday frame. While audiences have flocked to movie theaters, fans haven’t been so kind to the film’s music and its songwriters. The main criticism is that the songs don’t have that Disney hook, with some even saying it needed better songs. Or that the songs just don’t live up to those composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda for the 2016 original.
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Songwriter Abigail Barlow responds with a smile, “Give it a month, all the kids will be singing it, and you’ll be tired of it.”
Barlow is one half of Barlow and Bear (Emily Bear), the songwriting team behind the new songs featured in Disney’s “Moana 2.”
Bear chimes in, “I would say that everyone has an opinion.” She adds, “Writing a sequel is really difficult because obviously, you’re never going to be able to recreate the feeling of the first one. And so, people like what they know, and this is new. So, of course, they’re going to have opinions. And I don’t know…music is subjective.”
Indeed it is. And while they do have to measure up against the earworm songs created by Miranda, the sequel tasked them with going in a new direction, just like the film’s heroine.
Barlow and Bear are the youngest composers ever to be hired by Disney. The duo shot to fame after penning tunes for “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical,” which won the 2022 Grammy Award for best musical theater album.
Hiring them was a no-brainer, according to “Moana 2” director Jason Hand. He says, “We talked about what Moana’s journey would be, and there was going to be this continued evolution of self. I think because they had had success with their music, they very much understood that their future now was going to be both that success that they’ve had and this unknown future.”
And yes, they did reach out to Miranda who was always just a “Facetime call away.”
“He gave me books from musical theater storytelling greats [that were] all about how to craft a lyric and how to tell stories through music in the most succinct and pleasing way,” Barlow says. The best advice Miranda offered was to lean into their inspirations. An example Barlow gives is when they were faced with writing a rap. She says, “He was like, ‘Don’t be afraid to lean into the things you like to listen to, and that was really helpful.”
The first song they wrote was Moana’s welcome song, “We’re Back,” reminding audiences of where Moana and her friends are in life. The first lyrics were, “Sailing from the horizon back to our home, our island.”
Hand reinforces the idea that Barlow and Bear were the best people for the job, adding that hearing “We’re Back” was “incredibly infectious” and “really brought us into the world. From that point forward, we just were working with them as we were developing the story.”
In addition to Hand, directors Dana LeDoux Miller and David Derrick Jr., as well as returning composers Mark Mancini and Opetaia Foaʻi, helped guide Barlow and Bear through the songwriting process. The music of the film was indeed a collaborative effort.
Says Hand, “The music actually is different than anything we’ve heard within the story because it’s a different philosophy that’s being introduced to Moana.” In the sequel, Moana (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) has new responsibilities, including being a big sister to Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda). Picking up three years after the first film, Moana journeys far into the ocean to find a hidden island and break a curse.
While writing “Beyond,” Bear says she felt a dichotomy between that song and the first film’s “How Far I’ll Go.” Even though Moana finds herself about to leave again, she’s happy and she has her little sister Simea, who doesn’t want her to leave. Says Bear, “She loves her more than life. Now she’s being asked to [leave], and not only that, go on a journey that no one’s ever successfully come back from. So it’s terrifying.” Bear explains they wanted to highlight how the stakes were different this time around, saying, “It’s breaking her in half to think they have a world worse than ever.” She continues, “I think we also wanted to highlight the vulnerability because Moana is very strong and brave and powerful, and all the things we know and love her to be, but she’s also human.”
In penning the lyrics, Barlow could relate to the character. She says, “I felt like Moana having to leave behind my old playbook, and just be taken over by this process and allow myself to learn.”
They also had to consider how Cravalho’s voice had changed, and where to factor that in. Says Barlow, “Her voice has matured and grown over the eight years since we’ve seen her play this role. So we really wanted to give her moments to shine and really show off her instrument.”
Director Miller first heard Cravalho sing the song in the studio and realized how Barlow and Bear had nailed it. “We really struggled with what Moana wants in this moment because she’s been on this whole journey in this first film, and now we’re sending her off on a new journey. What’s different? And really, it wasn’t until we landed on this idea that it’s not that she’s not going to go. This isn’t a struggle between, will I stay or will I go? That was the first film. She understands that it’s the right thing to do to go, but she’s older now, and now she understands that she has something to lose and that leaving can have consequences.” She adds, “I thought that [Barlow and Bear] just did a beautiful job bringing that to life.”
It was important to make sure the music wove seamlessly together, and that’s where composer Foa’i became integral to the music. Says fellow composer Mancini, “We try to really make sure that everything goes together. That’s why you hear Opetaia singing on the songs, and it to feel like one big piece of music.”
Like Mancini, Hand is protective of the music. His credits include “Encanto,” “Zootopia” and “The Princess and the Frog.” “I think it’s incredible. We have been living with these songs a lot longer than everybody else,” he says. “I will say the songs that Emily and Abigail wrote, they absolutely killed it. If you just sit with them, just for a second, I think people will fall in love with them the way we have, because they are incredible songs that tell the story.”
Hand promises the music will be “timeless,” just like this story of Moana and her new adventure.
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