The Disney Song Encyclopedia - fieldi

210 “UNDER THE SEA”
tux and fedora, sings the swinging love song with a big band, crooning about
a love that cannot be denied.
“Under the Sea” is the Oscar-winning calypso number by Alan Menken
(music) and Howard Ashman (lyric) that is the musical centerpiece of the
animated movie The Little Mermaid (1989). The crab Sebastian (voice of
Samuel E. Wright) tries to explain to the mermaid princess Ariel (Jodi
Benson) that life on land is terrible and that she will be much happier staying
below the surface where she belongs. The number starts out as a clever
list song all about the advantages of life underwater, but soon it erupts into
a Ziegfeld Follies–like production number, with various forms of sea life
joining in the singing and dancing. Ashman’s lyric is particularly artful in its
use of the many marine animal names in the rhyming. In the 2008 Broadway
version of The Little Mermaid, the number was led by Tituss Burgess
as Sebastian. There have been several recordings of the song for children:
Jazz Networks made a notable disc in 1996, Earl Rose made a jazz version
in 2000, the A Teens recorded it in 2002, Raven recorded it in 2005, and
there was also a playful recording by Andrew Samonsky with backup vocals
by Meredith Inglesby, Andy Karl, Tyler Maynard, and Keewa Nurullah.
“Up, Down, Touch the Ground” is the brief but fondly remembered
exercise song Winnie the Pooh (voice of Sterling Holloway) optimistically
sings as he does his morning calisthenics. Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman
wrote the rhythmic little ditty for Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree
(1966), the first Disney film short based on the A. A. Milne stories.
“Upendi” is the infectious song about a topsy-turvy world written by
Randy Petersen and Kevin Quinn for the video sequel The Lion King 2:
Simba’s Pride (1998). The medicine man/baboon Rafiki (voice of Robert
Guillaume) sings to the unlikely lion lovers Kiara and Kovu about a place
where everything is upside down and the opposite of normal, but a perfect
place to fall in love. As Rafiki describes the place, a montage shows the land
of Upendi, where hippos swing from trees and rhinos dance a conga line.