K Is For.....King Louie

I LOVE Disney's Jungle Book. I have since I was a tyke and my love has faded not one little bit as I've grown up. Baloo is a hero of mine and Kaa almost makes me not so horrified of snakes. Maybe it's the fact that he speaks with Winnie The Pooh's voice, I don't know. I love the jungle setting and the ruins where King Louie lives always seemed like the sort of place I wouldn't mind running off to if I got it in my mind to run off. One never knows, it's best to have a plan, right? Which brings us to King Louie. He's King of the Monkeys, and an orangutan himself I think. But its a Disney cartoon, taxonomy isn't all that important. What is important is that he steals his part of the movie completely. He's cool and happy and mischievous. He can dance and swing and sing. He sings the song "I Wanna Be Like You" which is all about how he wants the secret to fire so he can be just like Man. Well, this man would gladly give up civilization to be like HIM. Sometimes. To live in the jungle, singing and swinging through the ruins of some ancient civilization sometimes sounds pretty good. It especially sounds good when the stresses of life and work pile up this time of year.

So, with my love of Jungle Book in general, and King Louie in particular, imagine how happy I was when my friends' band, motherboy, played "I Wanna Be Like You." These people provide an escape for me when we go to see their shows, and hearing them sing this just melts my little heart. This video was taken after my very favorite ukelele songstress spent a week wrangling Munchkins in preparation for a stage production of The Wizard of Oz. Jen's voice is as a result extra sultry. Enjoy.