JUKEBOX: “I Won’t Say I’m in Love” by Susan Egan

Meg singing in frustration as the Muses urge her to say that she is in fact in love.

Hi everybody! It’s Kimberly here for my seventh post for the genre “Children’s Music.”

What’s more cliché than a love song? Not much, but as Paul McCartney sings, “Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs. And what’s wrong with that? I’d like to know.” The thing that I find interesting about “I Won’t Say I’m in Love,” from Disney’s 1997 film Hercules is that it’s essentially a love song where the girl sings about how she refuses to acknowledge that she is in love. If any of you watch the Disney Channel, like I do, you probably saw that they showed Hercules again so I thought it would be appropriate to review my favorite Hercules song, if not one of my favorite Disney songs of all-time.

“I Won’t Say I’m in Love,” is one of many iconic Disney songs that the brilliant songwriter Alan Menken composed. He’s written “A Whole New World” from Aladdin, “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast and “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid just to name a few. He’s excellent at composing memorable melodies all while helping Disney with its extraordinary ability to tell a good story. Although Hercules is undoubtedly about its titular character, “I Won’t Say I’m in Love” is the perfect song to let the audience know more about Hercules’s love interest Meg.

Meg is a very strong-willed woman who we learn as the film goes on is indebted to Hades because she sold her soul to save her boyfriend. Even though Hercules takes place in ancient Greece, the story of Meg who gives everything up for the person she loves only for that love to be ignored is adherently modern. Like anyone who has been hurt before, Meg is wary to ever fall in love again and when she meets Hercules, or “Wonder Boy” as she calls him, the thought that she could be falling in love again scares her. I appreciate that Susan Egan, the voice of Meg, also provides Meg’s singing voice because her sassiness and strong will really shines in this song. The Muses, who conventionally narrate what’s happening in in Greek stories, have a plethora of hilarious lyrics urging Meg to just admit that she in love. For the first time, in one of my reviews I’m giving “I Won’t Say I’m in Love” the coveted 5 records because its lyrics and unforgettable melody are simply pure genius.

If you know this song already, as I reckon you do, all I can tell you is that there is, “No chance. No way,” that you’re getting this song out of your head any time soon. I hope you enjoyed my review and if you did please come back for another review next week! J

Below is the “I Won’t Say I’m in Love” scene from Hercules.