The 25 best Disney songs to make your heart go bippidy-boppidy-boop

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11. Poor Unfortunate Souls - The Little Mermaid (1989)

Pat Carroll sneers and derides in her spectacular solo number as nasty sea witch Ursula ("life's full of tough choices, innit?"). In fact, the song's so strong that a test version of it (recorded by co-writer Howard Ashman) is what convinced Carroll to take the role in the first place

Biggest Goosebump Moment: "SING!" The sea witch demands that Ariel exercise her pipes in order for them to be plucked from her gullet. As the mermaid's fragile notes sound, Ursula's voice booms over them. Scary stuff.

10. Reflection - Mulan (1998)

 "Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me?" Our gender-swapping heroine has a crisis of identity, voicing her feelings of low self-worth through a song. Because this is Disney, and that's how they roll.

Biggest Goosebump Moment: "When will my reflection show who I am inside?" Mulan gets a little philosophical

9. Zero To Hero - Hercules (1997)

It's montage time as our singing ceramic narrators show Hercules' stratospheric rise – yep, from zero to hero. Cue fainting girl fans, plus lyrics about pecks and how to pronounce the word 'vase'.

Biggest Goosebump Moment: The clappin' starts and the ladies commence jubilantly trumpeting our hero's name.

"Her-cu-leeees, Her-cu-leees!"

8. Hakuna Matata - The Lion King (1994)

Lion cub Simba stumbles upon the jungle's oddest duo in Timone and Pumba, a meerkat and warthog, whose outlook on life is refreshingly laidback. This, basically, is The Lion King's "Bare Necessities".

Biggest Goosebump Moment: While Pumba's gospel-style interlude is enough to stir even the chilliest of spirits, the grub-munching stirs goosebumps of a less pleasant nature

7. Cruella De Vil - 101 Dalmatians (1961)

Roger Radcliffe comes up with an imminently catchy ditty on the spot about the smoke-puffing, fur-loving Cruella De Vil. It's just one of three songs in the film (obviously the tradition of an uber-soundtrack hadn't quite taken hold yet), but it's easily the most catchy.

Biggest Goosebump Moment: Cruella comes storming in, interrupting the song (just plain rude), insulting everybody in the immediate vicinity, and proving the validity of Roger Radcliffe's every lyric.

6. Friend Like Me - Aladdin (1992)

Bracing as a smack in the chops but entertaining as, well, a singing genie, this Robin Williams solo number is blessed with the energy of a thousand excitable puppies and just doesn't let up. As creative as it is manic, it's essentially Genie introducing himself to Aladdin in the most spectacular way possible.

Biggest Goosebump Moment: The song screeches to a crescendo and Williams shows us what his pipes are really made of.

5. Bare Necessities - The Jungle Book (1967)

Baloo the bear teaches wild child Mowgli how to enjoy life on an even keel. Originally conceived by Terry Gilkyson and then given a spruce-up by the Sherman Brothers, it's an upbeat, imminently hummable tune that sort of makes you want to wrap up warm on a winter night and watch the stars while sipping hot chocolate.

Biggest Goosebump Moment: Things get all tongue-twisty "Now when you pick a pawpaw, Or a prickly pear, And you prick a raw paw, Next time beware, Don't pick the prickly pear by the paw." Impressive.

Zoe Delahunty-Light
Zoe Delahunty-Light

While here at GamesRadar, Zoe was a features writer and video presenter for us. She's since flown the coop and gone on to work at Eurogamer where she's a video producer, and also runs her own Twitch and YouTube channels. She specialises in huge open-world games, true crime, and lore deep-dives.