When Will My Life Begin? facts for kids

"When Will My Life Begin?" is a song from Disney's 2010 animated feature film, Tangled. It is sung by Rapunzel (Mandy Moore), and serves as the "I Want" song of the film. It is reprised later on once she is allowed out of the tower for the first time. A short reprise with Rapunzel reiterating her situation, and reasoning that "I've got my mother's love...I have everything" etc., was cut from the final film, though was included in the soundtrack. Lyrics are by Glenn Slater, and music is by Alan Menken.

Production

"When Will My Life Begin?" was the first song that was written for the movie. Alan Menken explained how he devised the song within the constraints of the chosen genre (guitar-themed score): "When I thought about Rapunzel in the tower and her long hair, on a gut level, and I thought of the folk music of the 1960s—Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell—and, it wasn’t an immediate yes, but I wrote six different versions of that opening number [“When Will My Life Begin” performed by Mandy Moore as Rapunzel] and it worked". Menken noted that in the context of the musical film's structure and to move the plot forward "In Tangled, we had to have to have Rapunzel start with [the premise that] ‘everything’s great here [in the tower]’ and end with: ‘when will my life begin?’".

When asked by DenofGeek about the "over-arching [musical] theme of the film", Menken responded:

In the case of Tangled, it was a B-section of When Will My Life Begin, the theme that I use. [at which point Mr Menken starts singing the theme out loud] That really was not the major part of any song, because I couldn't use [he sings another bit here].I just go, "What can I use? what can I use? Oh, I'll use that!"

The film's Blu-ray disc features "extended versions of the songs 'When Will My Life Begin?' and 'Mother Knows Best', with animatic renderings of the unfinished animation". The main version originally had a prologue in which Rapunzel sings about how she had spent 6000 hours of her life locked up in a monotonous life, and how her 18th birthday is 24 hours away. Bennets Reviews wrote "Interestingly, the first reprise of "When Will My Life Begin" does not appear in the film, though the second reprise does".

Synopsis

The film's "opening tune" is about how Rapunzel accomplishes many things throughout her day, but what she really wants is adventure and to be outside her tower. Spirituality & Practice explains "For her entire life, Rapunzel has been dreaming about venturing out of the tower to see up-close-and-personal the floating lights in the sky that appear every year on her birthday. But to do so, she would have to step into the dangerous unknown world".

Composition

The song's tempo is "moderately fast", and the genre is "rock". Collider explains: "Joni Mitchell is an influence on When Will My Life Begin?, and the barebones use of guitar provides a different feel. One can easily see the parallels that Menken and the directors went for in blending old with new, and there is an interesting result. Mother Gothel's songs feel as ancient as she is, while Rapunzel's songs have a truly youthful exuberance and feel." Alan Menken acknowledges that he was "painfully aware" of thematic similarities between this song and Quasimodo's "I Want" song "Out There" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) during the writing process, and "wanted to make sure we avoided them". He elaborated further however, explaining "But there is a difference. Quasimodo looks out [from the church bell tower] and knows he wants to be out there in the world—but Rapunzel is not so sure; she’s afraid. We have to want it for her. So, it was a challenge. There’s also a very different energy in Tangled".

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