Recorded 1937 Length 1:53 Writer(s) Larry Morey | Genre Soundtrack Label Walt Disney Composer(s) Frank Churchill | |
"Someday My Prince Will Come" is a popular song from Walt Disney's 1937 animated movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was written by Larry Morey (lyrics) & Frank Churchill (music), and performed by Adriana Caselotti (Snow White's voice in the movie). It was also featured in the 1979 stage adaptation of the 1937 animated musical movie. In AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs, it was ranked as the 19th greatest film song of all time.
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Overview
This song first appears 57:40 into the movie, when Princess Snow White sings a bedtime song for the dwarfs after their small party. It later appears when Snow White is making a pie and once more in a more formal version when the prince takes Snow White away at the end.
The American Film Institute listed this song at #19 on their list of the 100 greatest songs in movie history. Following "When You Wish Upon A Star" from Pinocchio at #7, this is the second highest ranked song from a Disney movie out of four, with the other two being "Beauty and the Beast" from Beauty and the Beast at #62 and "Hakuna Matata" from The Lion King at #99. The song was then briefly sung on the 1971 sitcom All In The Family by Edith Bunker in the episode Archie's Weighty Problem.
As a jazz standard
Originally written as a waltz, the first interpretation in the jazz form was performed by the "Ghetto Swingers" at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943. About that concert the author and musician Herbert Thomas Mandl tells in his film Tracks to Terezin. The concert took place in the so-called Coffee House of Theresienstadt and Mandl himself saw and heard it. The original title of the concert was "Music from Frank Churchill". But the Nazis could see that title as a provocation, so it was changed to "Music from the film 'Snow White" by Walt Disney".
The song was performed in the 1948 film Mickey as "One Day My Prince Will Come".
In 1955, jazz pianist Jack Pleis recorded it for his album, Music from Disneyland.
In 1957, jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, inspired by an anthology of Disney tunes owned by his child, included a version of the song on the album Dave Digs Disney.
The song quickly became popular amongst jazz musicians, who considered its chord sequence to be particularly satisfying. Later versions were recorded by Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Grant Green, Oscar Peterson, Clare Fischer, Leon Spencer Jr. and many times by Herbie Hancock, who would use it as the basis for a virtuoso showpiece display.
The recording on the 1961 Miles Davis album, Someday My Prince Will Come, features a pedal point interlude between choruses that has often been imitated. Pianist Wynton Kelly, who performed on Davis' version, recorded the track as a trio later that year on his own album of the same name.
Lena Horne, in 1976 sang a version with the Robert Farnon Orchestra and Phil Woods on A New Album.
The Chet Baker Trio recorded an album called Someday My Prince Will Come in 1979.
Keith Jarrett released an interpretation with his "Standard Trio" in 1986 on Still Live and later in 2002 on Up for It.
Sun Ra's 1989 live album Second Star to the Right includes a version of the song that incorporated both vocals and an extended rubato saxophone solo.
Al Di Meola recorded the song in 1993 on his album World Sinfonia II - Heart of the Immigrants, describing it as a "tribute to Miles Davis".
Singer Cassandra Wilson recorded a jazz version of the popular standard in 1999 for her Blue Note Records album Traveling Miles.
Bassist Stanley Clarke recorded a cover on the album Jazz in the Garden. The album features Lenny White on drums.
Med Flory included the tune on his 2006 album Best of Supersax and the L.A. Voices.