Late in act two of the new Frozen musical, while freezing to death, Princess Anna gets her big song. To turn Frozen from an animated film into a two-act Broadway show, the creative team behind the Disney movie reunited to expand and deepen the original material, with new scenes, reconfigured plotlines, and most importantly, new songs. Disney has released three of the many new additions to the musical online already: an emo ballad for Elsa, a duet for Anna and Kristoff, and an “I want†song for Elsa. Vulture is exclusively premiering the fourth: “True Love,†performed by Patti Murin (the show’s Anna) in the music video below.
For Frozen songwriters (and recent Oscar winners) Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, writing “True Love†offered them a chance to get inside the psychology of Anna, a woman who’s been raised on fairy tales and follows them until they literally leave her alone in the cold. The song arrives after the dashing prince Hans betrays Anna and leaves her to freeze to death as she succumbs to her sister’s accidental curse. “It’s seeing somebody with a Prince Charming complex accepting the fact that what she’s been holding onto for her whole life is not true,†Murin told Vulture.
To that end, “True Love†references the young Anna’s identity. The chords — and that piano riff at the beginning — recall “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?†and the lyrics revisit similar imagery. “It’s a deeper, more sophisticated, grown-up version of the same problem of knocking at a door and no one answering,†Kristen Anderson-Lopez told Vulture. It’s the song for anyone who grew up wanting to live life like a Disney princess and then realized that true love wasn’t just going to magically appear. “Had it been out before I was married and I was single and heartbroken,†Anderson-Lopez said. “I would have locked myself in a room and listened to it over and over again.â€