Deleted Songs Analysis: Someday

The song from this week is titled Someday, which was deleted from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Esmeralda is in the cathedral after claiming sanctuary, pouring her heart out about the status of the society around her. The history of this song involves the directors deciding to cut God Helps the Outcasts for a bigger song (this one), but they changed their mind, since they wanted a quieter song.

Now that we know what the song is about, it is time to look at the lyrics.  It starts out with the same as God Helps the Outcasts, so I will skip that part. The chorus starts with these lines, “Someday, when we are wiser, when the world’s older, when we have learned. I pray, someday we may yet live, to live, and let live.” What I personally like about these lyrics is that she kind of knows nothing will happen in her lifetime, and using the world growing older as a hope that humans in general learn from the mistakes of their past, regarding history. People just want to live their lives in peace, and every person has that right. She then sings about life being fairer, and greed being punished and overthrown, and need will be rarer. This is briefly touching about poverty, which I noticed was briefly glossed over.

Another set of lyrics is sung, “Someday, our fight will be won then, we’ll stand in the sun then, that bright afternoon. Till then, on days when the sun is gone, we’ll hang on, and we’ll wish upon the moon.” Prejudice is obviously a main factor in the song, but it is never explicitly stated what type of prejudice is taking place. She can be singing about classism, racism, ableism, sexism, ageism, or all of them. I have never even noticed this, but the very last line is a tie-in to As Long as There’s A Moon, with the moon being used as a symbol of hope, positivity, and growth.

Now that covering some of the lyrics are over with, now it is time to think about plot convenience. This would have obviously fit in very well for the plot, with all the discrimination taking place throughout the film. It is interesting that in this song, Esmeralda is never singing about herself or gypsies, but about society and a hope for the future in general. This song would have been the “Colors of the Wind,” “A Whole New World,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and the “Part Of Your World,” as the big stand-out broadway numbers of the film. I do understand why they took it out, since the Esmeralda in the film is not really the dramatic type, and is more mellow in her thoughts. This song would be better in an adaption that is a lot more faithful to the book, since it is more grand. God Help the Outcasts is more religious, and touches on the fact that she is desperately trying something that people of her kind are “not allowed to do”, and is a bit more personal to her.

Another week gone by, and another song covered. If you want to recommend a deleted song for me to cover, than list them under the comments, otherwise I will just choose a random song. Thank you all for reading this post, and I will either see you on Sunday for a DisneyToons review, or if I publish my list of potential Disney  theories sooner than that.

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