"Behind the Lyrics" Featurette | Disney's Encanto | Disney+

Disney's Encanto is a brand new musical adventure about a gifted family living in a magical corner of Colombia. Featuring songs written by my friend Lin Manuel. Hey, that's me! So let's dig a little deeper into what makes the music of Encanto sing. Encanto takes place in rural Colombia. Music that comes out of Colombia is so beautiful. It was really exciting and a really interesting new challenge getting immersed in Colombian culture and music. Let's go! Lin! Yeah? Tell me about the first song that you wrote for the movie was. The first song I wrote was the opening song of the movie called The Family Madrigal. One of my favorite moments is when she gets kissed by her mom. She has this like, mom! If you're impressed, imagine how I feel, mom! That is like the most amazing mix of proud and mortified in the middle of her solo. Mom! There's this one section in the middle that I wrote it as if I were writing a horn line. That would sound great on trumpet, but I have Steph going... I knew she could do it because I know how great her voice is. Waiting on a Miracle is Mirabelle's yearning to belong. The rhythm of that is in three. It's three stringed instruments playing in sort of a waltz time. It's just a different beat. She's literally out of beat with the rest of her family. There's something that clicks inside her where she realizes the wheels are in motion for her to chase down her destiny. I like these heroine songs so much. You go on a major journey with a character and suddenly you know her better from the inside. We Don't Talk About Bruno is capturing a very specific thing, which is the we're not supposed to talk about that. It's all we talk about. Nailed it. It is the one that got stuck in my head the most. I would sing it to myself all the time. Everyone sings over the same chord progression with a totally different rhythm and a totally different cadence. So it was a really fun way of just getting to know everyone in the family. Dos Oruguitas is unique because it's the only song in the score where a character is not singing to us in real time. We wanted to write a song that encompasses the love story of Abuela Alma and Abuelo Pedro and how that leads to the miracle that becomes the encanto. Dos Oruguitas is the song that made me cry the most. It's so beautiful and I think one of the strongest things about that song is that it is sung in Spanish. And yet, when the audience watches the film, because of the images that are married to the song, no matter what language you speak, you understand what's happening. This film is about family, about how simple that is and how complicated that is. Every song is a discovery. It's all organic to the storytelling. And it's really exciting.