The Necessary Ferocity of a Good Villain Song

I have, to her great delight, gifted my eight-year-old daughter with the Kpop Demon Hunters soundtrack this Yule. (Her twelve-year-old brother is less thrilled.) While she’s much more interested in the songs by Huntr/x, for reasons, she’ll still listen to Saja Boys. I know people who are pretty firm on the subject that “Soda Pop,” one my daughter deems “pretty good,” is the best song in the movie. She won’t drive her brother crazy with that one, but if I’d given it as a gift to various of my friends, they’d wear that out.

And I myself will say “Friends on the Other Side” is the best song in The Princess and the Frog. “Mother Knows Best” isn’t the best song in Tangled, but it’s a fine one. “Let It Go” was supposed to be a villain song and ended up rewriting Frozen because it was impossible to make Elsa the villain if she had such a great song. The tradition of the villain song is a relatively new one; classic movies don’t reliably give villains their own songs. But once the villain song took off as a concept, it became quite clear that the villain song needed to stand out.

But why? Why should “Poor Unfortunate Souls” be so spectacular? Elphaba gets “Defying Gravity,” but the unnamed Wicked Witch of the West gets no song at all. I don’t know if Eleanor Audley could even sing, and she voiced two Disney villains—two great Disney villains, yet. Why did Remmick get “The Rocky Road to Dublin” when Lena Lamont gets nothing? It can’t be just that voice. The lack of villain songs in classic musicals isn’t all at the door of the musicals’ not always having villians in the traditional sense.

I think it starts with Sondheim. Sweeney Todd arguably has nothing but villains, except for poor Toby. Even Judge Turpin gets a song, too. “Pretty Women” isn’t the best song in the show, but it’s awfully good. And it makes Judge Turpin a fully realized character. And, of course, “A Little Priest” builds into the characters of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett. Everyone in the musical is developed. With Into the Woods, he took characters we thought we’d known since childhood and made us change our minds about them. Witches can be right; giants can be good.

Ursula isn’t right. Scar isn’t good. And you don’t have more sympathy for Jafar when you hear his plans. But they are better realized as characters for having songs. And if it’s not a good song, is it worth listening to? “This Is the Thanks I Get?!” isn’t as good as Pine’s rendition of “Agony,” and it’s not just the unnecessary interrobang. A good villain song gives a villain depth. A deeper villain makes for a more nuanced plot. And not all plots need to be nuanced, goodness knows, but if you want your musical to have one, make your villain song a banger.