Mary Poppins

This is the song George Banks sings on his first appearance. Follow how many times the melody returns in the film, and you can see how he changes.

• A way of singing borrowed from English comic opera, rattling the words off at speed (the patter song), renders in rhythm his belief that life should roll along like clockwork.
• The same melody returns once in “A British Bank,” before the bank scene, and once more in “A Man Has Dreams,” near the end. In effect it is used like a melody that points to a single character (a leitmotif).
• The once self-assured beat slows and wavers as the film goes on. It is worth comparing how the meaning shifts while the melody stays the same.
• David Tomlinson built his portrait of an English middle-class head of household less through vocal skill than through a half-spoken, line-reading delivery.

The first song Mary Poppins sings, as she tidies the nursery. Her way of handling the children is established here.

• Sound effects such as whistling, birdsong and finger snaps become part of the rhythm. The song's idea of turning work into play lives in its sound as well.
• It is said to have been written after Julie Andrews did not care for a different song the Sherman brothers had first brought in. Robert Sherman recalled getting the idea from his son's story of taking the polio vaccine on a sugar cube.
• In a short passage featuring a robin, Andrews is said to have produced the bird's whistling herself.
• In the stage version that premiered in London in 2004, this song again carried the nursery scene, staged with scenery that tidied itself.

The word Mary offers in place of a speech after winning the race inside the chalk drawing. A word for when you have nothing to say became a whole song.

• A London street band in pearl-button suits (a pearly band) provides the accompaniment. The blend of accordion and brass creates the atmosphere of a street festival.
• The song keeps speeding up, going as far as wordplay that reads the word backward. It is worth listening to how a word-game song builds its fun.
• Because they performed to prerecorded songs in scenes blending live action and animation, the rhythm locks precisely with the dance moves.
• The word even appears as a headword in the Oxford English Dictionary. In the stage version it was rechoreographed so that the children give each letter its own gesture.

Before bedtime, Mary tells the children the story of the bird woman on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral. This small song sets the course of the film's second half.

• Broken chords that spread a harmony out one note at a time (arpeggios) run underneath like a music box, and Andrews lowers her voice to sing it like a lullaby. It is the quietest song in the film.
• It was Walt Disney's favorite song; according to Richard Sherman's recollection, after work Disney often asked the Sherman brothers to play it for him.
• The melody, without words, returns late in the film as background music when the father walks through the night past the cathedral. That he has never heard the song makes the moment all the lonelier.
• Jane Darwell, who played the bird woman, had retired, but took the role at Disney's request; it became her last film.

Bert the chimney sweep appears and sings it to the children after they run from the bank and lose their way. It stands at the threshold where the film's mood turns from the children's play to the story of their father.

• A minor key with 3 beats to the bar, in other words a melancholy waltz. That the tune is dark even as it sings of luck seems to come from its also holding the hard life of the chimney sweep.
• Irwin Kostal layered the oboe with the small clarinet (E-flat clarinet) to create a sound like a street hurdy-gurdy. It is often cited as an example of arranging that blends two instruments to produce the sound of one that isn't there.
• With this song, the Sherman Brothers won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
• In the stage version, the song becomes a thread for Bert's storytelling, recurring several times to bridge one act to the next.

It is a long dance the sweeps put on across the rooftops they have climbed to through the chimneys. Its end leads to the Banks family's parlor and the father's return home.

• Like a London music-hall song, it builds its beat by repeating simple calls. The dancers change their moves in response to the short commands shouted out among them.
• At nearly 9 minutes, it is the longest track on the soundtrack. The same melody speeds up and slows down, changing shape to match each stage of the dance.
• As Admiral Boom's fireworks burst and mix with the brass, the dance swells until the rooftops look like a battlefield.
• In the 2004 stage version, the actor playing Bert became famous for walking up the wall along the proscenium and tap-dancing upside down from the ceiling.

This is the film's last song. It does not spell out how the ending comes about, but at its close the family and the people of the street look up at the sky together.

• The melody leaps upward in its first measure or two, painting a kite catching the wind.
• A song once sung alone grows into a chorus of the people on the street. People who spent the whole film not hearing one another's songs now find a single voice.
• The children's note that flew up the chimney in the opening scene and this kite both rise upward. It can be heard as a device linking the beginning to the end.
• As the song draws to a close, the wind changes and the music quietly fades. The refusal to dress up the farewell is what gives the film its grace.