How Pocahontas' 1995 theme song Colors Of The Wind has become a generational rallying cry

Straits Times

08-07-2025

NEW YORK – In January, Ms Lanie Pritchett expressed her displeasure with the second inauguration of US President Donald Trump by passionately lip-syncing a 30-year-old Disney song.
'I had this rage in me,' the 22-year-old theatre major at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas said in an interview. 'It was a rough day for a lot of people. I thought, I can't do much, but I can share my thoughts.'
Her thoughts were encapsulated in a few lines from Colors Of The Wind, the power ballad from Disney's 1995 animated film Pocahontas. Specifically, 'You think the only people who are people are the people who look and think like you / But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew'.
She uploaded a TikTok video with the overlay, 'me arguing with magas for the next four years' – and a caption explaining that her progressive views partly stem from Pocahontas being her 'favourite princess movie growing up'. It quickly racked up more than 500,000 views.
Ms Pritchett, was raised in a conservative household in East Texas, where she and her sister would give living-room performances of Colors Of The Wind while the Pocahontas DVD played in the background. She now views the song as an important commentary on queer inclusivity, cross-cultural understanding and environmentalism.
'Obviously, that movie has its problems,' she said, 'but the music was really good.'
In fact, 30 years after Disney released Pocahontas in theatres in June 1995, the film's Oscar- and Grammy-winning track has broken out as a beloved entity with millennial and Gen Z fans.
On TikTok, people like Ms Pritchett have reinterpreted the Colors Of The Wind lyrics to comment on an array of contemporary topics they feel strongly about, including immigration, the Middle East, Trump and Elon Musk, Black Lives Matter and oil drilling.
They play acoustic versions on guitar, set audio snippets to nature montages and animatedly mouth the lyrics.
Even British singer Ellie Goulding posted an a cappella rendition with the caption 'Colors Of The Wind radicalised me'.
The song's popularity is especially impressive, given that Pocahontas has not aged well, and the film is not often discussed in a nostalgic light.
Instead, Colors Of The Wind seems on track to one day join When You Wish Upon A Star (originally from the 1940 film Pinocchio) as the rare Disney anthem that is almost completely divorced from its parent property.
Colors Of The Wind was written in 1992, when veteran Disney composer Alan Menken and Broadway scribe Stephen Schwartz convened at Menken's home studio in Katonah, New York, to craft the ballad that would anchor Disney's still-scriptless animated musical about Pocahontas.
A scene from the 1995 film Pocahontas, where Irene Bedard voiced the titular character and Judy Kuhn provided the singing voice. Mel Gibson voiced Pocahontas' love interest John Smith (right).
PHOTO: THE WALT DISNEY CO
In the film, the track served to convey Pocahontas' dismay at John Smith and other English settlers who had arrived in the 1600s with little regard for the Powhatan people and the natural surroundings they encountered. ('You think you own whatever land you land on.')
As the song unfolds, Pocahontas educates Smith on respecting Earth and one another, 'whether we are white or copper skinned'.
Schwartz has said his lyrics were inspired by the words of Chief Seattle from the 1800s, although the recorded accuracy of Seattle's speeches and a purported letter from Seattle to President Franklin Pierce that Schwartz referenced have been much debated.
The songwriters were also aware that they would be speaking to contemporary audiences.
'We had a conscious desire to have the overarching theme be about protecting the environment,' Menken said in an interview. 'It's one of the vital issues of our time.'
The composers next approached Broadway performer Judy Kuhn to record a more formal demo of the track. Although Kuhn, who is Jewish, was told that Disney hoped to ultimately hire a Native American woman to sing for Pocahontas, in the end, Kuhn performed on the soundtrack too. (Pocahontas' speaking voice was provided by Native American actress Irene Bedard.)
Earlier in 2025, Kuhn's version of Colors Of The Wind was certified multi-platinum, after selling more than two million copies.
'I really look forward to the day that this song seems quaint and irrelevant,' Kuhn said. 'It just feels, sadly, more meaningful all the time.'
Keeping with tradition, Disney released a radio-friendly pop version, sung by American actress-singer Vanessa Williams, which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Although there have been popular comic takes, such as American actress Melissa McCarthy's 2016 lip-synced performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the overwhelming sentiment among fans and the songwriters is that Colors Of The Wind holds a serious urgency that is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.
'There are obviously important themes in it that made a difference, and that's a wonderful thing,' Menken said. 'Frankly, when I look at the world, I wish it had made more of a difference, but we'll take what we can get.' NYTIMES