And At Last I See The Light

'All those days watching from the windows

All those years outside looking in

All that time never even knowing

Just how blind I've been

Now I'm here blinking in the starlight

Now I'm here suddenly I see

Standing here it's oh so clear

I'm where I'm meant to be

'And at last I see the light

And it's like the fog has lifted

And at last I see the light

And it's like the sky is new

And it's warm and real and bright

And the world has somehow shifted

All at once everything looks different

Now that I see you'

'I See the Light', lyrics by Glenn Slater

I grew up with the original Disney Rennaissance.

The Little Mermaid. The Lion King. Pocahantas.

And now I appreciate a second Disney Rennaissance.

Tangled, Frozen and Moana.

And I have come to adore this song from Tangled.

And today I just read that while critics loved the animation for this sequence,

that they were just ambivalent on the song.

I disagree.

These are lyrics up with the best lyrics of John Lennon and George Harrison.

Which for me is the high standard, even above Dylan.

Simply stated but beautiful lyrics of deep ideas to live your life by.

Deep philosophy in song form.

Of all the great songs that Alan Menken has written the music to

All the songs from The Little Mermaid

Aladdin

Beauty and the Beast

Only Colors of the Wind from Pocahantas

Disney's finest moment ever

Has lyrics as good

And of all the others

Only perhaps Just Around the Riverbend and maybe one or two from Hunchback of Notre Dame even comes close.

Of all the lyrics that the great Alan Menken has set to music

In all these Disney movies

Only a few come even close to the lyrics of I See The Light

And only Colors of the Wind matches it.

Lyrics up with the finest ever written.

Not just pretty words but deep philosophy.

Words to live by.

Words to heal the modern world.

And Alan Menken's wonderful melody and clear arrangement wonderfully reinforce the lyrics and their message while giving us a beautiful melody.

That's my opinion as a writer and amateur literary critic on this magnificent song.

As to the critic who called these lyrics 'a 20-car pileup of cliche'...

The great ideas have already been stated thousands of years ago.

By The Buddha

By Lao-tzu and Confucius

By Christ and the Prophet Isaiah

And if this song rips off the ideas of the Psalms of David

And other literary legends such as Tolkien

It's because they know that these are the ideas that will heal the world.

God loves you!

Sincerely,

David S. Annderson

P.S. The lantern scene that accompanies this song in the movie, the legendary animation sequence, was inspired by real lantern releases that have been done in China for almost 2,000 years and in Korea, Indonesia and other countries around China for over a thousand years (and almost as long in Japan)! All that is real, in places like Indonesia and Korea, and it started in China!