WHY IS MUSIC SO IMPORTANT IN ANIMATION? – Chapter 9 The Bare Necessities

4th year CSE students continue the project entitled ‘Why Music is so Important in Animation?’ in order to enhance the value of music in animated movies. The main objective of this activity is to analyse the lyrics and discover the moral that songwriters wanted to transmit, why the songs are performed in a specific moment in these movies, and so on. All the songs selected have been award winners and and have been chosen for their valuable messages.

In our 9th instalment, we will talk about the song «The Bare Necessities» written byTerry Gilkyson from Disney’s 1967 animated film The Jungle Book, sung by Phil Harris as Baloo and Bruce Reitherman as Mowgli. Originally, it was written for an earlier draft of the film that was never produced. The song was also sung by Louis Armstrong. In 1967, «The Bare Necessities» was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song but lost.

“The Bare Necessities” is a song being recited primarily by Baloo. Baloo is a fictional character, actually a bear, from the Walt Disney animated universe. He is addressing Mowgli. Mowgli is like a young student to the elder and more-experienced Baloo. And the lesson Baloo is imparting on him via this particular tune is that he should not overcomplicate life.

Rather his focus, if you will, should be on the bare necessities. And Baloo presents himself as a living example of someone who lives by this mantra.
For instance, he depicts his home as one own which, via the bounty of nature, food is always an arm’s length away.

We hope you all accept that errors are part of our learning process and we need to fail sometimes to become perfect.

Thanks for appreciating our mistakes in pronunciation.

Presenters, Guillermo, Javier and Julio, talk about this song in our radio station.

Let’s listen to what they have to say.