Cliff Edwards, When You Wish Upon a Star | Music Lifts 🎶 🏋

In the 35th edition of Music Lifts (2024), we’re uplifted by Cliff Edwards and the Disney Studio Chorus performing, “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

Welcome to Music Lifts 🎶 🏋, a column highlighting songs that encourage, inspire, and uplift the spirit; songs exuding fortitude, positivity, and resolve, even in the face of adversity.  Featured songs aren’t genre-specific; songs may or may not be faith-based. The goal is for these songs to make you feel better – be LIFTED to new heights!  So, for the 35^th edition of Music Lifts 🎶 🏋 (2024), we highlight “When You Wish Upon a Star” as performed by Cliff Edwards and the Disney Studio Chorus.

“When you wish upon a star / Makes no difference who you are / Anything your heart desires / Will come to you.” Those nostalgic lyrics from “When You Wish Upon a Star” NEVER grow old, Jiminy Cricket! The memorable character from Pinocchio (1940), one of Disney’s most important animated classics, was voiced by Missouri-born actor and musician Cliff Edwards aka Ukulele Ike (1895 – 1971).  The thoughtful, uplifting ballad has a strong argument as the greatest Disney song of all time. It’s Disney’s theme song, after all! The Academy Award-winning gem has long transcended the film. Leigh Harline (1907 – 1969) composed the music while Ned Washington (1901 – 1976) penned the lyrics. This is a song that generation after generation has come to know and love.

“If your heart is in your dream / No request is too extreme,” Edwards prudently sings, adding, “When you wish upon a star / As dreamers do.” Throughout, the lyrics are pitch-perfect. Keep an open mind because dreams can come true! Washington’s incredibly memorable text hearkens back to simpler, more innocent times. The melody is one of the most tuneful your ears will ever be privy to.  That even includes the bridge section, performed by the Disney Studio Chorus:

“Fate is kind

She brings to those who love

The sweet fulfillment of their secret longing.”

Oh, the poetry! Fate isn’t always associated with a positive connotation, but in the hands of Jiminy and Ned Washington, it is! Mr. Cricket ‘puts a bow on it’ following the bridge: “Like a bolt out of the blue / Fate steps in a sees you through / When you wish upon a star / Your dreams come true.” Harline and Washington dropped a timeless ‘banger’ with “When You Wish Upon a Star”.  Dreams can come true; don’t let anybody tell you otherwise! Louis Armstrong, Cynthia Erivo, and Sara Bareilles are a few of many musicians who covered the classic.

Appears in 🔻:

• 14 Enjoyable & Remarkable Wish Songs (2022)

Various Artists // Pinocchio // The Walt Disney Company // 1992

Cliff Edwards & the Disney Studio Chorus, When You Wish Upon a Star: Music Lifts 🎶 🏋 No. 35 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; The Walt Disney Company; Monstera Production, Qamar Rehman, RDNE Stock Project, Thomas Ronveaux, Wolrider YURTSEVEN from Pexels; OpenClipart-Vectors, Quốc Hùng Hầu from Pixabay]