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'The Little Mermaid' soundtrack: Inside the changes to the original

The reworked lyrics in "Kiss the Girl" make room for consent.

The official soundtrack for "The Little Mermaid" was released May 18 — with some noticeable differences from the original.

The live-action remake of the classic 1989 film has two songs with revised lyrics, "Poor Unfortunate Souls" and "Kiss The Girl." The composer, Alan Menken, previously said he would reword some song lyrics because “people have gotten very sensitive.”

Further, it contains three new songs — "For The First Time," "Wild Unchartered Waters" and "The Scuttlebutt" — that were not in the original movie.

Below, we walk through the specific changes, and why they were made.

Changes to 'Poor Unfortunate Souls'

"Poor Unfortunate Souls" is the marquee song for Ursula the sea witch, played in the remake by Melissa McCarthy. In the song, she successfully manipulates Ariel into giving up her voice in exchange for human legs.

The new version of "Poor Unfortunate Souls" skips over an entire verse from the original in which Ursula tells Ariel a voice isn't so important, anyway — at least, not when it comes to dating.

Here's how the original lyrics went.

"You’ll have your looks, your pretty face / And don’t underestimate the importance of body language, ha! / The men up there don’t like a lot of blabber / They think a girl who gossips is a bore! / Yet on land it’s much preferred for ladies not to say a word / And after all dear, what is idle babble for? / Come on, they’re not all that impressed with conversation / True gentlemen avoid it when they can / But they dote and swoon and fawn / On a lady who’s withdrawn / It’s she who holds her tongue who get’s a man."

Menken told Vanity Fair last month that he changed the lyrics to encourage women to be vocal.

“We have some revisions in ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’ regarding lines that might make young girls somehow feel that they shouldn’t speak out of turn, even though Ursula is clearly manipulating Ariel to give up her voice,” he told the outlet.

By the end of the song, Ariel gets legs, but Ursula has her voice now. But, the stipulations of their agreement say Ariel will regain her voice if she gets Prince Eric to fall in love with her, and kiss her, in the next three days.

Changes to 'Kiss the Girl'

Ariel has three days once on land to have a kiss of "true love" with Prince Eric. The catch? She can't talk. To move things along, Sebastian the crab sings “Kiss the Girl” while the duo are on a boat.

The changes in the song are more subtle. The original lyrics are, "Yes, you want her / Look at her, you know you do / Possible she want you too, there is one way to ask her / It don’t take a word, not a single word / Go on and kiss the girl."

In the new version, the last two phrases have been revised to, "Use your words, boy, and ask her / If the time is right and the time is tonight / Go on and kiss the girl."

Menken said he updated the lyrics to promote consent.

“There are some lyric changes in ‘Kiss the Girl’ because people have gotten very sensitive about the idea that (Prince Eric) would, in any way, force himself on (Ariel)," he told Vanity Fair.

The new songs

The new songs, “For The First Time” and “Wild Unchartered Waters,” are sang by Halle Bailey (Ariel) and Jonah Hauer-King (Prince Eric), respectively. The film's director, Rob Marshall, told Deadline in a story published May 17 why the team added a new song for Ariel.

"Ariel had one song, and we had to hear more from her, even though she loses her voice to become a human," he explained. "We came up with this idea: what is she feeling when she first comes on land? And so John DeLuca and myself and David Magee came up with this idea for a song called “For the First Time,” which allowed for a full montage of her experiences on land."

In "Wild Uncharted Waters," Prince Eric yearns to see the mysterious young woman who saved him from drowning. "Now I am on the shoreline, but I'm still lost at sea," he sings.

"The Scuttlebutt" is a rap duo between Sebastian and Scuttle (Awkwafina) summarizing the latest happenings in the castle (namely, Prince Eric is about to marry a woman who is not Ariel).