My Top 5 Favourite Songs From Musicals

I've been thinking about all of the songs from musicals that I love and I thought it would be fun to compile a list of some of the ones I like best, so here's a list of some of my strong favourites. Will I listen to every song from Little Shop of Horrors after I write this? Quite possibly.

1. Skid Row - Little Shop of Horrors

Little Shop of Horrors is perhaps my favourite musical on a conceptual level, just because I love some evil alien plant plot, truly. How could I not? And of course, I love Rick Moranis, and I will never stop loving Rick Moranis. But also, I love the ways it touches on poverty and its downtrodden characters. In this song we're introduced to Skid Row, the miserable setting for our hapless plant feeder, and it is the best.

I love the slow building intro that develops all of a sudden into these incredible, climbing verses. It's the best.

2. Rainbow High - Evita

Patti LuPone is the queen of my heart and mind in every moment, but this song is my big favourite from Evita. I live for the declaration "I need to be thrilling" and the chanting backing vocals create a wonderfully sinister theatrical feel. Like you're performing a ritual. And really, she is.

3. Shock Treatment - Shock Treatment

Everyone knows The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and that has some great songs (how can I be expected to resist Meatloaf? I can't), but I have a huge soft spot for this title song from the follow up musical, Shock Treatment. The way Richard O'Brien barks his lines out like he is constantly on the verge of descending into the basement of a haunted house is a delight and a pleasure, and the chorus rocks.

4. Once Upon a Time in New York City - Oliver & Company

This is easily one of my favourite Disney movies based on the soundtrack alone. There is a perfect mix of goofiness (Bette Midler's song about the trials and tribulations of being a very beautiful dog, for example) and some stuff that will make me cry. This song is one of the things that will make me cry. It opens the movie, it sets the tone really well, and my tear ducts are instantly activated when Huey Lewis sings "keep your dream alive". Good.

5. Mama Who Bore Me - Spring Awakening

This song is the only one on this list from a musical I haven't seen, but it doesn't matter because this song is amazing and I had to include it. It's incredibly gentle and melancholy and then the most beautifully rageful despair, howling into the woods. Or at least, that's what I like to imagine. Lea Michele just screaming into the night. It's an incredible expression of angst, and I can't help but feel intensely moved by this song.

Musicals! They're good and I like them.