Disney has teamed up with Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire to record a cover of "Baby Mine" for Tim Burton's upcoming live-action remake of Dumbo. While we've heard glimpses of the cover in trailers for the movie, the cover song will be featured in full during the film's end credits.
The goal, according to Mitchell Leib, president of music & soundtracks for Walt Disney Studios, was to create a version of the classic lullaby that was as "interesting" and "artistic" as the director Disney had hired to helm the remake.
“Not an easy ambition to accomplish,” Leib said. “Arcade Fire is an artist I’d pursued over the years—but this time I had Tim Burton! I pitched the idea to Tim and his producer Derek Frey, and it turned out Arcade Fire is one of Tim’s all-time favorite artists. The rest is history.”
Similarly, Arcade Fire's Win Butler actually has a personal connection with the 1941 animated classic film. Talking about the cover, he revealed:
“There is a scene with a locomotive in the original ‘Dumbo’ that uses an instrument called the Sonovox that my grandpa Alvino Rey made famous in the 1930s,” says Butler. “Every time I saw the film I thought it was him. When we were asked to do the [end credit version of ‘Baby Mine’], I immediately got all of my grandfather’s old guitars and wanted to play them in the song. My mom plays the harp on the track, my brother the theremin, my wife [Régine Chassagne] sings and plays drums, and our son even plays the triangle, as well as the rest of our ‘family’ in Arcade Fire. I will forever relate to the song thinking about the people I hold so dear that are ‘so precious to me.’ Listen for the cameo of my grandpa Alvino’s famous Sonovox at the end.”
Leibl added: “A brilliant, new, interesting, artistic and very original version of ‘Baby Mine’ now resides at the end of our new live-action ‘Dumbo.'"
An Oscar-nominated original song, "Baby Mine" featured music by composer Frank Churchill and lyrics by Ned Washington. The emotional lullaby actually accompanied one of the animated film's most heart-wrenching scenes between Dumbo and his mother, who is chained up in a circus train car.
Arcade Fire's Régine Chassagne pointed out how the themes of a child being separated from mother are incredibly relevant to what's happening in today's world. “It’s a story we need to tell again,” she said. “A lot has changed since 1941, and we are still on that quest to allow for all people to accept and celebrate who they are on this planet.”
Listen to a sneak peek of Arcade Fire's "Baby Mine" cover below. Sharon Rooney, who portrays Miss Atlantis, will perform "Baby Mine" in the film, while Arcade Fire's version will play during the end credits.
Dumbo flies into theaters on March 29, 2019.