It’s good to be Lin-Manuel Miranda. There are three songs from the Disney soundtrack that he has recorded. Encanto,Current No. 1, on the Billboard 200 album charts. He’s up for a Best Original Song Oscar for “Dos Oruguitas,”His immersion in Colombian culture has allowed him to capture that vibe. His second song nomination is for the Academy Award, after his work in the Disney film. “How Far I’ll Go”Starting at Moana.
Tonight, he took part in the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s virtual discussion about his craft. He was joined by Dixson, co-writer of “Be Alive”Starting at King Richard; Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell, co-writers of “No Time to Die”Starting at No Time To DieLin- Manuel Miranda is a writer. “Dos Oruguitas”Starting at Encanto(Walt Disney); Van Morrison, writer of The Walt Disney Company and SHOF inductee, was awarded the Johnny Mercer Award. “Down To Joy”Starting at Belfast; and SHOF Inductee Diane Warren (writer of “Somehow You Do”Starting at Four good days
Miranda used his past experience in the music industry to help him create the soundtrack for the film. MoanaFor his latest.
“When they make a movie, it becomes a lot of people’s first glimpse at that culture, for better or worse. And so they take it really seriously. And so I, you know, I had a good experience on (Moana) and I said, ‘If you’re making a Latin-themed, Disney musical, like, I’ve been waiting all my life for the call. And so we chose Colombia because of the incredible diversity, because it’s the home of magical realism. And we went down there in 2018 and just went to major cities and really small towns and just soaked up music everywhere we went. It was kind of the most fun field trip ever.”
Miranda also wrote original tracks “The Family Madrigal,” “What Else Can I Do,”And “Waiting On A Miracle.”For Encanto.
Nile Rodgers, discussion moderator, pointed out that EncantoOscar track is Miranda’s very first Spanish-language song.
“I think every artist on here will agree with me. It is like learning the wrong song first before you can write the right song. This moment is the core story of the family. It’s a deeply traumatic story. It had to be translated into Spanish. It’s a weird song for me, not just because of the Spanish. I’ve written in Spanish before, never a full-length song like this. But because it’s not a character singing most of what I do in musicals, it’s characters singing to each other. For this moment, however, the tragedy being shown was so devastating. The music had to be removed from the tragedy.
He continued, “And so, the job kind of became to write a folk song that feels like it’s always existed, that can hold what’s happening on screen. And so again, how do you write a song that feels like it’s always existed without outright copying a song? And the answer for me was, like, find a, like a really perfect nature metaphor for it. So it’s about these two caterpillars who are in love and don’t wanna let each other go, but they have to, because that’s the only way you get to the next part of your life. So finding that metaphor was kind of the key to the whole thing. And then again, I, everyone on this call relate, there’s that moment where you don’t feel like you’re writing the song, you feel like you’re catching the song and you’re, you’re pinning it down. And that’s a really lovely moment. I started dreaming in Spanish again, which I have not done since I was a little kid, you know, with my grandparents in Puerto Rico. And so it was kind of like your whole brain is in sort of, catching this thing and, pinning it, pinning it, in my case, to the piano.”
You can also view the virtual event for a short time on the Songwriters Hall of Fame Website songhall.orgAfter the Eventbrite Event.