The Magic of Disneyland's Background Music

The creation of background music for a theme park is a fine art unto itself. Most visitors to one of Disney's worldwide theme parks tend to fixate firstly, and most enduringly, on the rides themselves. This may be followed most closely by the visual dynamics of the parks, placing the most emphasis on the work of Imagineers and set designers. Yet Disney's parks famously (or infamously) strive to affect all the senses. It is a poorly kept secret that scents are pumped through vents throughout Disneyland to accent the areas guests pass through. The enticing aromas of candy-making, for example, do not derive from within the candy shoppes on Main Street USA, but from hidden vents across the storefronts.

Concept art for Main St. USA. Image: Disney.

Music is another important aspect of themed design. Of course, Disney's relationship with music is longstanding: it was the innovation of synchronized sound with the animated cartoon that propelled Mickey Mouse and his creators into stardom, and it would be impossible to imagine a Disney film without its Academy Award winning songs. The same holds true of the rides in the world's various Disney parks, and not just the rides. Streetscapes and area music requires just the right playlist to immerse guests into the places and times they are meant to represent. Theme parks are not designed to merely replicate reality, but to craft an environment of heightened reality. Main Street USA does not mimic an actual turn of the century American community, but the romantic ideal of the Gay Nineties owing most to cinematic representations. Like cinema, Main Street USA needs a soundtrack.

The following are some choice background music loops from Disneyland and other Disney parks that are invaluable for aficionados of Victorian and Edwardian music. Each is carefully compiled, often by legends like Jack Wagner, to evoke the romantic ideal of the time period. Sometimes that means straying from actual period pieces to choice excerpts from Hollywood and Broadway, not to mention medleys of Disney's own tunes. Nevertheless, they are perfect background music for Scientific Romances in a bygone age. These links carry you to YouTube, which is an invaluable resources for Disney park music. The Google-savvy individual should have no problem finding means of making mp3 copies, if they are so inclined.

• The Disneyland Emporium - Piano renditions of era staples from in and around Main St. USA's main shoppe, the Disneyland Emporium. 
• Disneyland Paris' Emporium - Another variation on the Emporium music loop, more reliant on strings.
• Plaza Inn - One of Disneyland's best eateries is the Plaza Inn, off the hub at the end of Main Street USA, with more elegant music to match its somewhat more elegant decor.
• Main Street Station - This track records the functioning Nelson-Wiggen Orchestrion that once graced the halls of the Disneyland Railroad's Main St. Station.  
• New Orleans Square - Ragtime standards are jazzed up for Disneyland's homage to the Crescent City. 
• Port Orleans - French Quarter - Jazzier yet is the music for Walt Disney World's Port Orleans -French Quarter Resort (where my wife and I stayed on our honeymoon, in fact!). 
• Frontierland - For something a little more down home, the Frontierland background loops offers banjo, harmonica, and the fiddle.
• Splash Mountain - Even further down home and down south is the queue loop for Splash Mountain, which includes selections from the film Song of the South.
• Aunt Polly's Refreshments Area - Tom Sawyer's Island at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World accented its theme with a one-time counter service restaurant set to Aunt Polly's house. The counter service is now gone, but the house and its bluegrass music remain.
• The Disneyland Gallery - For Disney lovers, elegant stringed versions of classic Disney film soundtracks.
• Paradise Pier - This final music loop from Disney's California Adventure park (before the area was converted to "Pixar Pier") is meant to capture the jaunty feeling of a Victorian seaside amusement park. 
• Paradise Park - Across the water from Paradise Pier is Paradise Park, a more genteel space with a more genteel soundtrack (that borrows liberally from Main Street USA's).
• Hall of Presidents - For those Americans feeling somewhat more patriotic, the lobby background music for this celebration of America's presidents might fit the bill.
• Disneyland Paris' Main Street USA Morning and Evening - Disney park music changes throughout the day to capture different moods, in this case along Main Street in Disneyland Paris. 
• Liberty and Discovery Arcade Loop - Due to the fact that it can snow in France in winter, Disneyland Paris' Main Street is flanked by two enclosed walkways, one themed to technological invention and the other to France's gift of the Statue of Liberty. 

Another two tracks have appeared on Soundcloud: the 1976-1991 morning and evening background music for Walt Disney World's Main Street USA.