A Dream is a Wish - Michelle Shocked



All this week (except Wednesday) we have been celebrating the 60th anniversary of Cinderella. I have chosen to post a cover of a different song from Cinderella each day. Today I am posting the most famous of all the songs from the film, A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes has become one of Disney's most well known songs, possibly second to When You Wish Upon a Star. Lyrically, these two songs are very similar, both reflecting the philosophy that Walt Disney injected in everything he did.

The song has been covered in a variety of different styles, like pop, big band, mo-town, jazz, and also folk, as you can hear in today's cover by MICHELLE SHOCKED

You can find this song on her 2005 Disney tribute album, GOT NO STRINGS.

Labels: a dream is a wish your heart makes, cinderella, folk, got no strings, michelle shocked

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  Got No Strings - Michelle Shocked




I know that the posts on this site have become a bit rare (mostly due to a new baby being born!), but I am planning a comeback in the new year. So please hang in there for a few more months and you will get regular posts with even more covers of your favourite Disney tunes!

But in the meantime, please listen to this version of Pinocchio's I've Got No Strings as performed by the Texan singer-songwriter MICHELLE SHOCKED.

This is the title track to her 2005 album GOT NO STRINGS which was actually part of a three disc box set called THREESOME. The GOT NO STRINGS disc was completely made up of Disney cover songs, stretching from the most popular to the obscure.

Labels: folk, got no strings, i've got no strings, michelle shocked, pinocchio

  ¶ 12:27 PM 2 Comments Links to this post

  Wish Upon a Star - Michelle Shocked
Day two of When You Wish Upon a Star Week and we take a turn into the world of guitar players with this nice folky/bluegrassy version that MICHELLE SHOCKED has called Wish Upon a Star.

This track comes from her 2005 Disney cover album GOT NO STRINGS.

When You Wish Upon a Star Michelle Shocked 2005

Labels: got no strings, michelle shocked, pinocchio, when you wish upon a star

  ¶ 1:28 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Give a Little Whistle - Michelle Shocked
In 2005, MICHELLE SHOCKED released three albums at the same time! One of the albums, GOT NO STRINGS is composed of her interpretations of her favourite Disney songs. Today I'm posting her version of Give a Little Whistle from Pinocchio. GOT NO STRINGS is arguably the favourite of the three albums, and with good reason. Her arrangements are unique and they are fun to listen to! Give this whole album a listen to if you can. It is filled with good music.

I find it a bit hard to classify this album in a genre. It's a bit country, a bit jazzy, a bit folky and bit bluegrassy. This is part of the reason many people like Shocked and her albums. It is diverse enough to reach a wide variety of people but still stays true to the style that she has created.

Give a Little Whistle Michelle Shocked 2005

Labels: acoustic, give a little whistle, got no strings, michelle shocked, pinocchio

  ¶ 1:27 PM 3 Comments Links to this post

  Spectrum - Michelle Shocked
Today is the first day of Friday Features here at Covering the Mouse. Every Friday will have it's own theme and today, the last Friday of the month, is Obscure Disney Song Friday. Today's obscure track is The Spectrum Song originally sung by Paul Frees as Professor Ludwig Von Drake.

Way back in 1961, Walt Disney decided to change his black and white television program, Disneyland, to color as that was becoming more standard in households and Walt always liked being on the cutting edge of technology. The name became Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color and the very first episode featured a new character, Ludwig Von Drake, who sang a song that was very apropos to the new title. The Spectrum Song was written by the Sherman Brothers who tied color and music together very closely for this song. The following excerpt is taken from Wikipedia:

The opening stanza of "The Spectrum Song" tied each color to a specific note in a major scale, similar to the color coding of a toy xylophone. Thus, the word "red" corresponded to the tonic, or octave note (Do), yellow was the major third or mediant note (Mi), green was the perfect fifth or dominant note (So), and so on. The first four notes of the song thus formed a major chord, do-mi-so-do (red-yellow-green-red), a playful variant on the exercise of singing scales, similar to the Rodgers and Hammerstein song "Do-Re-Mi" from The Sound of Music. The Shermans thus compare colors to musical notes, stating in the lyric that "Color has its harmony".

This version of the song is arranged and performed by Michelle Shocked, a singer-songwriter and political activist from Texas. In 2005 she released three albums at the same time! One album called GOT NO STRINGS is made up entirely of Disney cover tunes! I'll be posting more by her in the future and I'll tell you a bit more about Michelle at that time.

Spectrum Michelle Shocked 2005

Labels: bluegrass, got no strings, michelle shocked, obscure, spectrum song, wonderful world of color

  ¶ 7:37 AM 3 Comments Links to this post