Why I'm Writing Original Princess Songs

It's been seven months since I started studying music theory and learning to play piano. I've learned a lot in that time, even though I still have a long way to go. One of my longer-term goals, aside from my Princess Piano series, is to create an album of original princess songs that cover the topics Disney tends to shy away from in their adaptations. The working title for this album is Locked Tower. I recently recorded my first song, "Silent Siren," inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid." I went through a few setbacks along the way when trying to determine how to get the best quality sound. After testing out two microphones and recording three different tracks and mixing them together on my computer, I was pretty happy with the result, even though I know it's not perfect.

The Little Mermaid is the story that was changed the most drastically by Disney due to its tragic ending and darker themes. I wanted to write a song that pays tribute to Hans Christian Andersen's original intent of sacrifice and loss. As much as I love the Disney film, the themes it portrays are different from the ones in the fairy tale, in which the mermaid chooses to sacrifice her own life in order to protect the prince and his happiness with another woman. These are the same themes I wanted to portray in the book adaptation that I wrote over 15 years ago, Of Land and Sea: The Untold Story of The Little Mermaid. Although most other fairy tales have happy endings, there are still elements that are overlooked, even in darker media like Into the Woods.

When the Disney Princess brand launched with its first anthem, "If You Can Dream," I rewrote my own version of the lyrics and was told they were too dark for a Disney Princess song. However, I felt strongly that experiencing trauma is an important part of fairy tales to fully earn the happy endings. To deny this would be a reinforcement of toxic positivity. It's also what makes these characters so relatable and gives us hope that anyone can be a princess. Taylor Swift has demonstrated this many times by writing songs about her own hardships despite her success.

Other songs I'm working on for Locked Tower include a song that Snow White sings to her stepmother, a song that Cinderella's stepsister sings to the prince, and, of course, a song about Rapunzel being trapped in the tower. In a way, this album is the opposite of Disney. Of course, Alan Menken is still a huge inspiration to me, but I think there's another side to fairy tales that can't be explored until we are older and view them through a different lens. That's why I'm writing these songs in a minor key to contrast the bright, hopeful sound of children's animated classics. If you listen carefully, the opening chords of "Silent Siren" mirror those of "Part of Your World" with a minor key signature instead of a major one.

Creating an album of princess songs feels like a natural next step for me after almost nine years of blogging about princesses and over fifteen years of writing stories about them. I don't plan on becoming a viral online sensation with this album, but I hope it speaks to someone out there who relies on princesses and fairy tales as a form of therapy in overcoming trauma, the same way I do. I had similar feelings about this when I saw Twice Charmed on the Disney Magic, though the show is mostly light-hearted in nature. Are there any original princess songs you would like to hear if you weren't limited by censorship or age restrictions? Let me know in the comments!