Les Poissons (The Little Mermaid) Lyrics — Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic

Song Overview

Review and Highlights

Quick summary

1. Role in the film: A comic villain-for-a-minute turn - Chef Louis treats seafood like a cabaret routine, while Sebastian becomes the unplanned guest.
2. Musical trick: Menken and Ashman lace a Broadway patter song with a winking nod to Offenbach's can-can, so the kitchen feels like a stage.
3. Placement: It arrives after Ariel's first day on land turns tense, giving the story a slapstick pressure valve before romance resumes.
4. Stage life: The Little Mermaid musical keeps the concept and adds structure, including a reprise for the chefs.
5. Modern change: The 2023 live-action remake cut the number and also removed Chef Louis, making room for a different tone and pacing.

The Little Mermaid (1989) - film soundtrack - not. Palace kitchen sequence, mid-film. The number is a miniature farce: sharpen knives, cue the chorus line, then let the crustacean panic do the rest. It matters because it turns danger into choreography and keeps the movie from sitting too long in fear.

What I love about this piece is its confidence. It does not ask permission to be weird. It barges in like a waiter with a tray, sells you "nouvelle cuisine" with a grin, then starts juggling tone: part culinary brag, part mock-French cabaret, part chase-scene engine. The writing is tight enough that the comedy lands even when you are not watching the visuals.

The performance is the secret sauce. The lead is not sung like a sweet Disney confession. It is tossed off like patter from an old pro, with consonants used as percussion. The chorus punctuates the violence with giggles and gasps, a reminder that in this world, menace can be silly and still feel sharp.

Creation History

Alan Menken and Howard Ashman built the song as a character sketch that moves plot in a sideways way: it does not change Ariel's mission, but it changes the viewer's breathing. Auberjonois sings it as if Chef Louis has been waiting all week for an audience. The classical wink comes from weaving in Offenbach's can-can, which turns the kitchen into a dance floor and helps the scene accelerate into slapstick without losing musical logic. If you want a shorthand for the late-1980s Disney approach, this is it: musical theater craft used to make comedy feel inevitable, not improvised.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

Chef Louis is preparing a seafood banquet for the palace. Sebastian is trapped in the kitchen, and the chef's culinary pride turns into a hunt. The song is the chef's showboating narration, and the sequence ends as a chase where the "dish of the day" fights back by surviving.

Song Meaning

On paper, the meaning is simple: a chef loves cooking fish. In practice, it is a satire of ego and performance. Chef Louis is not feeding people, he is starring in his own cooking fantasy. The kitchen becomes a theater where cruelty is played for laughs and technique is treated like virtue. That is why the number can be funny and unsettling in the same breath: the joy is real, but it is aimed at the wrong target.

Annotations

Les poissons, les poissons. How I love les poissons.

The hook is a salesman slogan and a self-hypnosis. Repeating the phrase turns appetite into identity: he is not just a chef, he is a brand.

First I cut off their heads, then I pull out their bones.

This is the song telling you what kind of comedy it wants: a cheerful tone describing grim actions. The mismatch is the gag, and also the warning sign.

Its so good, its so good, its so good.

Three repetitions make it feel like a pep talk. He is praising the meal, but he is also praising himself. The rhythm is applause in advance.

Driving rhythm and style fusion

The groove behaves like a machine that keeps tightening bolts: patter, then a lift, then that can-can wink that says "now we sprint." It is part music-hall, part Broadway, part cartoon mayhem. The rhythm is not just accompaniment; it is the chase plan.

Cultural touchpoints

The French flavor is deliberately broad: culinary name-dropping, mock-sophisticated phrases, and a little caricatured bravado. It is a stage tradition filtered through animation. If you squint, you can see the lineage of operetta and vaudeville peeking through the kitchen door.

Technical Information

1. Artist: Rene Auberjonois
2. Featured: Chorus ensemble (kitchen voices)
3. Composer: Alan Menken
4. Producer: Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, Robert Kraft, Ted Kryczko
5. Release Date: October 19, 1989
6. Genre: Film soundtrack; musical theater patter song; comic set piece
7. Instruments: Orchestra; percussion-forward accents; chorus punctuation
8. Label: Walt Disney Records
9. Mood: Frenetic, comedic, menacing-by-accident
10. Length: 1:35
11. Track #: 9 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack sequence)
12. Language: English with French phrases
13. Album: The Little Mermaid: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
14. Music style: Broadway-leaning patter with operetta nods
15. Poetic meter: Mixed, speech-led patter with quick internal accents

Questions and Answers

Who is singing?

Chef Louis, voiced in the animated film by Rene Auberjonois, with kitchen voices responding like a chorus line.

Why does it feel like a stage number more than a film cue?

Because it is written like musical theater patter: quick text, crisp rhythmic hooks, and a build that turns action into choreography.

Is the French element meant to be authentic?

No. It is a comedic mask: culinary buzzwords and swagger used to heighten the caricature of a chef performing for himself.

What classical piece is referenced?

The number folds in a can-can reference associated with Offenbach, a shortcut to "things are about to get fast."

Does the song matter to the plot?

Not by changing Ariel's goal, but by raising immediate stakes for Sebastian and then releasing tension through comedy.

Why did the live-action remake drop it?

The 2023 adaptation aimed for a different tonal balance and cut both the song and the Chef Louis character.

How does the stage musical treat it?

The Broadway version keeps the idea and also adds a short reprise for the chefs, expanding the kitchen world into a fuller theatrical beat.

What is the hardest part to perform well?

Text clarity at speed. If the consonants blur, the humor and the "knife-edge" timing go with them.

Is this a villain song?

It acts like one for two minutes. The chef is not the big bad, but the scene plays him as a threat with jazz-hands.

Awards and Chart Positions

This track was not pushed as a pop single, so it is better measured by the success of the soundtrack it lives on. The 1989 soundtrack reached the Billboard 200 and later landed high on Billboard's Top Soundtracks chart on catalog runs. The album has also been certified 6x Platinum in the United States and won a Grammy for Best Recording for Children, while the film's music won major awards in other categories at the time.

How to Sing Les Poissons

Performance data varies by database because patter songs can be counted in different pulses. A practical rehearsal target is G major with a working tempo around 110 BPM, and a commonly cited vocal span for the lead line sits near B-flat 3 to A4. If you are doing the stage arrangement, expect more ensemble complexity than the film track.

1. Tempo: Start slower than target speed and speak the text in time. Bring the tempo up only when every consonant stays readable.
2. Diction: Treat consonants as drum hits. The laughs live in crisp "t" and "p" sounds, not in volume.
3. Breathing: Mark micro-breaths between culinary "steps." If you wait too long, you will grab air and the line will sound panicked for the wrong reason.
4. Rhythm feel: Keep the patter buoyant and forward. If you sit back, the can-can lift will not feel like a gear shift.
5. Accent choices: Go for stylized clarity, not realism. A light hint sells the joke; an overloaded accent can bury the words.
6. High notes: On the top of the range, narrow vowels slightly to keep the tone focused, then release back into speech-like color on the next phrase.
7. Ensemble coordination: If you have chefs responding, agree on cutoffs and laughs. This number is choreography for voices.
8. Pitfalls: Rushing early, shouting to "act," or swallowing French phrases. The comedy is in precision, not force.

Additional Info

In the Broadway adaptation, the kitchen moment becomes more obviously "show within the show," with Chef Louis performed by John Treacy Egan and a brief reprise credited to the chefs on the cast album. That stage framing makes the number feel less like a detour and more like a scheduled comic beat, a breather that also shows human-world stakes for the sea characters.

There is also a youth-theater afterlife. Licensed school editions warn that the ensemble writing can be tricky, which tracks with what your ears already tell you: this is choral precision disguised as chaos. Put another way, it sounds like a kitchen accident, but it has to be rehearsed like clockwork. According to NME magazine archives on Disney musicals and their stage transfers, these "small" comic numbers often end up becoming the pieces that teach young casts how to listen to each other.

Key Contributors

Sources: YouTube (Walt Disney Records audio distribution), The Little Mermaid (1989 soundtrack) reference entry, Les Poissons reference entry, Apple Music track list, Discogs track list, The Little Mermaid (2023 soundtrack) reference entry, Tunebat track metrics, SongBPM track metrics, Singing Carrots range listing, Music Theatre International show page, Spotify Broadway cast track listing