Some of my all-time most popular blog posts are also my simplest: Disney parks background music loops. And believe me, I get it! I am on record as saying that Disney background music makes superior aural companionship for work, study, chores, and just getting in the mood for a Disney trip.
As such, I like to put together little collections for me and you – thematic groupings of background music loops that you can refer back to by mood or season and then select from at your whim. We’ve done all the Walt Disney World resort loops, all the WDW resort holiday loops, and all the WDW park loops.*
*Subject, of course, to change. When that change occurs please let me know so I can update!
What’s next for our Disney background music loop gatherings? We’re going vintage, of course! Except, uh, full disclosure: the word “all” in the headline is a temporary misnomer…
I FOUND THE OLDEST WALT DISNEY WORLD MUSIC LOOPS I COULD
I thought it would be interesting to see how much opening day Walt Disney World park music I could reconstruct. Obviously audiovisual recording equipment wasn’t nearly as much as a Thing going back to when most of the parks were first built, but Disney historians are crafty – surely it wouldn’t be too tough to find most of the original music loops?
Well, kids, this task turned out to be both harder and easier than I thought.
I began each search querying YouTube for each park’s music loop year by year. Naturally I began with the opening year and continued up until a decade after year one. I assumed that the older a park, the harder to track down the original music loops. Magic Kingdom (1971) was probably gonna be a tough get, whereas Disney’s Animal Kingdom (1998) should be fairly simple, right?
WAIT; STRIKE THAT; REVERSE IT; THANK YOU
Flip me on my head, because my quest seems to have been conceived on opposite day. I located almost every Magic Kingdom loop within its first decade of operation despite these reconstructions pulling from the 1970s. Epcot resources were scant, although the entrance music loop was easy to come by. I lucked into a bonanza for the Studios, securing multiple videos from the same channel (shout-out to The Theme Park Audio Archive!), but still fell short of a complete set.
As for Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the only suitably vintage music loop I tracked down isn’t even official, although I’d like to think it’s rooted in something real.
That’s the thing though – this particular music loop grouping sort of relies on self-reporting. I could only be sure of the origin year of the videos that offered them. And I can’t really fact check without a time machine, you know?
In the interim, I can only present to you what I have so far. So let’s dive in with
THE MAGIC KINGDOM: OPENED 1971
Main Street, USA
Frontierland
Liberty Square
Tomorrowland
Adventureland
EPCOT: OPENED 1982
Entrance
The Land
France
DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS: OPENED 1989
Entrance
Echo Lake
Hollywood Boulevard
DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM: OPENED 1998
This is the best I could find…
MY VINTAGE DISNEY BACKGROUND MUSIC SEARCH CONTINUES
Okay, yes, this particular set of Disney background music loops is particularly punctuated with holes. But I have reason to believe that will change, and here’s why:
As I noted above, I posited that the Magic Kingdom’s vintage loops would be the toughest to uncover due to the lack of casual audio equipment in the 1970s. Yet it was the most complete. Why? Nostalgia! No one’s bothered to comb through the archives and reassemble Animal Kingdom’s music because it’s too recent.
So let’s give it time. Eventually some Disney music nerd [affectionate] is going to develop the know-how and take to the time to replicate all the vintage music loops we’re missing. Are you that nerd? Do you know where there’s a secret cache of old-school Disney music loops, perhaps improperly labeled? Please do let me know – I won’t quit until I get the complete set!
Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Threads @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!