Disney Coverfolk: Covering The Mouse
with Alison Krauss, James Taylor, Michelle Shocked and more!
April 21st, 2010 — 10:17 pm
Not sure what I was thinking when I planned to write and post this week’s feature from the midst of a Disney World vacation. Though we’re spending the week a wonderful house in a gated community just off site, instead of quiet nights by the pool, we’ve been dropping early, utterly exhausted after nine-hour days in the parks and dinner in one or another of Downtown Disney’s famous upscale restaurants.
To be fair, we’ve made the most of our time in the Mouse House. Having an event planner for a spouse means arriving armed to the teeth with trade-secret strategies and planning trivia; couple this forethought with a willingness to get an early start, my own tendencies towards applied social science, a willingness to cart lunch around in a thermos backpack and eat sandwiches while waiting for the shows to start, and a pair of rainy days early in the week that kept crowds light, and you’ve got a match made in Fantasyland.
This is not the Disney World I remember as a child, but that’s made it easier, I think. Thanks to the amazingly awesome Fast Pass system, we’ve been able to get a few reservations for the big rides early in the day, and build our days around them. And for the Magic Kingdom, we had a serious ace up our sleeve: Disney has a program where you volunteer in your local community and earn instant “jump the line” passes to six rides of your choice for one day; my wife and the wee one did a three hour stint in a local Head Start program a few months ago, and having those precious passes today made for a record-setting day in the most magical place on earth, indeed.
The result: we’ve gone on practically every ride, seen almost every show and sight, and the longest line we had to wait in was the wait to get our bags checked on the way into Disney’s Animal Kingdom on Monday. Tomorrow, we’ll hit Space Mountain first thing before the line gets long, take a nap, and then finish the week with a dinner in Cinderella’s Castle with a plethora of Princesses – a must for any good Dad with two little princesses of his own – followed by a fireworks finale, a beach day to recharge, and a plane ride back home.
Still, such focus leaves us little time for attention to music beyond the bounds of It’s A Small World and the surprisingly excellent Finding Nemo: The Musical over at Disney Hollywood. The best laid plans of Mice and men having gone awry, here’s a tribute of a different sort: a set of folk and acoustic covers of songs from the Disney canon collected over the years, with much thanks to Kurtis of Disney coverblog Covering The Mouse for laying the foundation, and keeping the magic alive.
- Sinead O’Connor: Someday My Prince Will Come (from Snow White)
(from Stay Awake, 1988)
- Plain White T’s: When I See An Elephant Fly (from Dumbo)
(from Disneymania 6, 2008)
- Alison Krauss: Baby Mine (from Dumbo)
(from A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, 2007)
- Bonnie Raitt: Baby Mine (from Dumbo)
(from Stay Awake, 1988)
- Joe Henry: When You Wish Upon A Star (from Pinocchio)
(from Mary Had A Little Amp, 2004)
- Michelle Shocked: Got No Strings (from Pinocchio)
(from Got No Strings, 2005)
- Michelle Shocked: The Bare Necessities (from The Jungle Book)
(as above)
- Eliza Gilkyson: The Bare Necessities (from The Jungle Book)
(from Your Town Tonight, 2007)
- Gabriel Rios: I Wanna Be Like You (from The Jungle Book)
(from En Vivo, 2005)
- James Taylor: Second Star To The Right (from Peter Pan)
(from Stay Awake, 1988)
- Famille Grendy: Chim Chim Cher-ee (from Mary Poppins)
(from the Acoustic Live in the Attic series, more here)
- The Chieftains: Winnie The Pooh (from Winnie The Pooh)
(from Take My Hand: Songs from the Hundred Acre Wood, 1995)
- Carly Simon: Winnie The Pooh (from Winnie The Pooh)
(from the Piglet’s Big Movie soundtrack, 2003)
- Riders In The Sky: You’ve Got A Friend In Me (from Toy Story)
(from Woody’s Roundup, 2000)
Cover Lay Down posts new features and coverfolk sets each Wednesday, Sunday, and the occasional otherday. Even on vacation.