Released in December 2017, the soundtrack for the new movie The Greatest Showman has risen to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for two weeks, ahead of even Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. “This is Me,” a song about not being afraid to show your true self, has beennominated for the Best Original Song award at the 75th Golden Globes Awards. Featuring eleven powerful songs, it is the perfect accompaniment for an emotional movie like The Greatest Showman. All eleven songs are catchy and easy to sing along to. Hugh Jackman, who plays P.T. Barnum, sings in most of the songs, though other actors have their time to shine. Zac Efron and Zendaya sing together in “Rewrite the Stars,” a beautiful song describing the feelings of the forbidden lovers. Michelle Williams, the famous actress who plays Charity Barnum, and Keala Settle, the bearded lady, have their own songs: “Tightrope” and “This is Me.” The song“Never Enough” is unique because the singer is not the actress featured in the movie. While Rebecca Ferguson plays Jenny Lind, Loren Allred does the actual singing of the song and Ferguson lip syncs along.
My favorite part of the soundtrack is “A Million Dreams.” A song of childhood romance and promises, I found it to be very sweet and lovely. A young P.T. Barnum (Ziv Zaifman) serenades his love Charity about how they can go away to their own special place and live in a world that they have designed. He sings of a house they can live in together filled with wonderful things, and the dreams he has of “what the world could be.” Near the end of the song, Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams take over and finish with a wonderful duet.
Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the songwriters of Dear Evan Hansen and La La Land wrote the songs for this soundtrack. They were hired after writing “A Million Dreams,” and being able to capture the transition of P.T. Barnum going from a young boy filled with dreams to a man with imagination. In an interview, Pasek says that the songs were not easy to write. “I don’t know that any songs came pouring
The Greatest Showman: Soundtrack by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
Review by Katherine L.
out of us.” Paul adds that the easiest song to write was “From Now On” because they could really channel Hugh Jackman’s character, and it required storytelling: their strong suit. Easy or not, these two songwriters created an incredible soundtrack that is able to present the moving and powerful message of this movie.
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