Part of Your World

Ashman recruited Benson, with whom he had previously collaborated on the stage musical Smile (1986), to record "Part of Your World", and worked closely with her to ensure that she delivered a desirable performance.

Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg initially ordered that "Part of Your World" be removed from the final film due to concerns that the ballad would bore young children.

However, Ashman, Clements, Musker and animator Glen Keane ultimately convinced Katzenberg that "Part of Your World" is essential to the film's narrative, and the song was spared after audiences appeared to enjoy it during a subsequent test screening.

In addition to becoming Benson's signature song, which she continues to perform live, "Part of Your World" has been covered extensively by several artists of various genres, including Faith Hill, Jessica Simpson, Skye Sweetnam, Miley Cyrus, Bruno Mars, Carly Rae Jepsen, Jessie J, Olivia Newton-John, and Sara Bareilles.

[3] Ashman explained to the filmmakers that "Part of Your World" would be Ariel's "I Want" song, likening it to moments in stage musicals during which the heroine sings about her dreams so the audience can begin to care about the character and her journey.

[6][8][12] Additionally, Ashman had written a song entitled "Disneyland" with composer Marvin Hamlisch for their Broadway musical Smile (1986) in which a young girl, much like Ariel, sings about regularly watching Disney anthology series as a means of escaping her troubled childhood.

[2] Musker specifically wanted to change the line "I wanna be where the people are" because he felt that it sounded too political and reminded him of Governor of Illinois Dan Walker, suggesting that "the" be removed.

[2] Although Ashman was very defensive about the song and typically dismissed most of the directors' suggestions, he agreed to revise lyrics that originally described the contents of Ariel's grotto using eloquent terms such as "fine china" and "books bound in leather and gold", and replaced them with words that would be more familiar to a mermaid who learns about humans from an uneducated seagull named Scuttle.

[16] Her first voice acting role, for which she had to be carefully trained on properly projecting into the studio microphone,[20] Benson found the process of recording "Part of Your World" somewhat difficult after Ashman instructed her to approach it as though she was reciting a monologue as opposed to singing a song.

[26] Menken and Ashman deliberately selected segments from Benson's recording session that "are not perfectly sung" to include in the final version, ranging from unsustained, incorrect notes lacking in vibrato to spoken words, because the songwriters wanted her performance to sound as "real" as possible.

[31] Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg ordered that "Part of Your World" be removed from the film after observing that some children appeared to grow restless during the sparsely animated musical sequence while attending an early test screening of The Little Mermaid.

[16] Clements and Musker reminded Katzenberg that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney's first animated film, features a song similar to "Part of Your World" entitled "Someday My Prince Will Come" which ultimately became very successful.

"[65] Meanwhile, the New York Daily News film critic Kathleen Carroll identified "Part of Your World" as a "typically plaintive solo" that helps establish Ariel as a Broadway ingenue.

[13] Comparing "Part of Your World" to "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" from Cinderella, Entertainment Weekly writer Esther Zuckerman observed that the song proves how different Ariel is from Disney princesses by whom she was preceded.

[7] Written in the key of F major at a "moderately bright" tempo of 135,[71] "Part of Your World" is a yearning,[26] downtempo Broadway and musical theatre-influenced power ballad,[72][73] that gradually crescendos into a "showstopping" conclusion, bolstered by Benson's "powerhouse performance".

[5] Variety's Andrew Barker summarized "Part of Your World" as a "slow-building, Broadway-style showstopper" that "moves effortlessly from busy, literate verses to a longing pre-chorus and a belted-to-the-rafters refrain",[74] incorporating "dramatic" violins into its orchestration.

[72] Spanning exactly one octave from C4 to C5,[71] the song's limited vocal range allows Benson to effortlessly transition from her speaking to her singing voice, raising and lowering her volume throughout in a manner that resembles normal speech.

",[71][90] "Part of Your World" is "a plea for a life of discovery" and "inquisitiveness" as opposed to love,[91] using "nonsensical expressions" such as "gadgets", "gizmos", "whosits" and "whatsits" in lieu of various human artifacts.

[55][58] Bustle's Tracy Dye wrote that, in addition to "7 Lessons About Life & Facing Fear", the song also reinforces the importance of pursuing other opportunities, the belief that "material items don't lead to fulfillment", building new relationships and friendships, exploring new environments, and the concept of girl power.

"[39] The New York Daily News' Kathleen Carroll called Benson's voice "exceptionally lovely",[66] while Variety wrote that the singer "exhibits a show-stopping set of pipes" during "Part of Your World".

"[52] Entertainment Weekly's Esther Zuckerman described "Part of Your World" as "a perfect 'I Want' song," comparing it positively to “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” from the stage musical My Fair Lady (1956).

[110] While acknowledging that a "minor oversight" did occur during the editing process that resulted in the switching of two scenes during "Part of Your World", Disney originally assured customers that "There is no impact on the quality or overall experience of the film".

[132] In the Broadway musical, Boggess was eventually replaced by actress Chelsea Morgan Stock, who performed "Part of Your World" for the remainder of the show's run, describing the song as her "favorite moment".

[138] Variety's Jenelle Riley described Benson's rendition as "captivating",[140] while Ethan Anderton of Slash Film was impressed that the actress "still has some incredible pipes" despite being 54 years old at the time.

[138] "Part of Your World" was the first cover actor and singer Darren Criss, who appeared in the show opposite Bareilles and Benson as Prince Eric, uploaded to YouTube in 2007 prior to landing his breakout role on the musical television series Glee.

[137] Actress Anna Maria Perez de Tagle recorded a "high energized dance remix" of the song for the compilation album Disneymania 7 (2010),[150] interpreting how Ariel "would sound today".

Praising both the singer's interpretation and music video, Benson preferred Jepson's rendition over some previous covers because she felt that it focused "on telling the story", which she believes Ashman also would have appreciated.

"[171] In 2016, singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles performed an impromptu rendition of "Part of Your World" live at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre to entertain audiences while waiting for a production of her Broadway musical Waitress (2015), to recover from a technical malfunction involving a set piece.

[95] Time selected "Part of Your World" as one of the Disney Renaissance's most iconic moments, writing, "If you are a female-identified child of the ‘90s, chances are good that you have belted this song into your hairbrush or showerhead on more than one occasion.

[74] Billboard considers "Part of Your World" to be the Disney Renaissance's eighth best song, with contributor Taylor Weatherby crediting it with inspiring an entire generation to use the term "thingamabob".