Go the Distance

mulan would take it that year yeah i think so yeah okay well that was fun Any other thoughts before we get into our categories here? One other thing for Oscars, Hercules was nominated for Best Original Song

for Go the Distance.

That's a pretty good song.

Didn't win though, I believe, right? No, it

And then Roger Bart plays young Hercules.

So he also does the singing because only young Hercules has a song.

Yeah, Go the Distance.

Yeah, exactly.

What's yours?

I've just got go the distance.

Do you want to do it or do you want

me to do it?

I'm talking about Michael Bolton going the distance for Disney's 1997 Greek mythology flick, Hercules.

The song is Go the Distance, but long before he set foot on a Disney soundstage, Michael Bolton had already carved out a lane as one of the defining voices of adult contemporary pop, right? After years fronting hard rock bands and writing songs for other artists in the 70s and early 80s, Michael Bolton launched a soft rock solo career in the late 80s, scoring multi-platinum albums like Soul Provider, Time Love and Tenderness, and The One Thing.

With his powerful raspy tenor, Michael Bolton racked up number one hits like How Am I Supposed to Live Without You, When a Man Loves a Woman, and many others, making him one of the go-to voices for big emotional power ballads in the 90s, and the butt of many jokes, including a classic sequence from Office Space.

I celebrate the guy's entire catalog.

It was even fully recorded by the Irish boy band, Boyzone.

but then late changes to the script during the storyboarding process forced Minkin to scrap Shooting Star and rushed to write a replacement with the clock ticking.

That replacement turned out to be Go the Distance.

In the actual film, the song is performed by Roger Bart, who provided a Hercules singing voice, but for the pop single version that plays over the end credits, Disney handed the mic to a Michael Bolton.

I do Pure Imagination, yeah.

And then I also do I Can Go the Distance from Hercules.

That's

your all-time

Okay.

My honorable mention, um, and maybe it's a gasp because it's an honorable mention, um, is I Can Go the Distance from Hercules.

Is that an I want song?

It is, yes.

"I think I can." Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's kind of that energy.

It's like the I can go the distance.

Like, as long as I believe I can do it, uh, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it.

That is not as present in Hercules.

I will say in Hercules, um, I do really like the song, go the distance.

Um, that is you that's, um, I I'm a little partial to that just because it's utilized very frequently in, uh, we're a big Disney family and they use that one in the firework shows a lot and it can be really powerful how they use it in the firework shows but as it appears in the movie and as it works in the movie I think Colors of the Wind and just generally the musical score is stronger in Pocahontas and Well, on a week-by-week basis, I wouldn't necessarily use that as one of my main points.

For animated films, the music is such an important aspect of it that I'm going to use it as one of my points tonight.

He's admitted that Pocahontas is better.

So, I mean, I think we can probably move on from that point.

I will say, again, Go the Distance is one of my favorite songs, and I will concede that some of the music in Hercules is underrated, and it does not get talked about as much in the Disney canon as maybe it should.

All right.

Like, it, there was a, a big barrage of fireworks, and then it kinda, like, slowed down a little bit, and then they start...

They, they hit the music for, um, "Go the Distance" from Hercules.

Oh my God.

You heard, like, the da, da, da, da, da, da.

Like-

It was funny, that's what...

There was a random TikTok I saw, and this guy's like, "Ladies, here's five songs that every man, every man who was born in the '90s will listen to now, and if he doesn't listen to it for years, he'll still know it" And I think "Go the Distance" by Hercules was, like, number four.

It was just randomly on the-

Oh, wow

... an extended version of Go the Distance played by the horn and, but you got-

Oh, wow

...

Yeah.

I Will Go the Distance.

Go the Distance, yes.

You think it's that?

So that's my guess, Go the Distance.

You're incorrect.

[laughs]