Individuals couldn’t have scripted a superior story than how Arcade Fire came to cover “Baby Mine” for the new Disney live-action remake of “Dumbo.”
For reasons unknown, Win Butler, frontman of the Grammy-winning band, has an exceptional connection to the 1941 animated original — to be specific a scene that utilizes an instrument considered a talking guitar that his grandfather, Alvino Rey, developed.
However, that was a happenstance that Disney reps didn’t have an inkling when they moved toward Arcade Fire about doing their fantastic take, which plays over the completion credits of director Tim Burton’s “Dumbo.”
“You can’t make up his grandfather’s instrument being used in the original animated film,” says Mitchell Leib, president, music and soundtracks, for Walt Disney Studios, who sealed the deal to get Arcade Fire. “That is just kismet,” he tells The Post. “This was just meant to be.”
At first, Leib — who likewise had a connection to “Baby Mine,” from Bette Midler singing it on the soundtrack of 1988’s “Beaches,” which he worked on earlier in his vocation at Disney — had been searching for a “contemporary female” to revamp the melody. On his list of things to get for the tune about Dumbo being isolated from his elephant mother were Lorde, Adele and Halsey.
It was Norwegian alt-pop vocalist Aurora who wound up singing the version that first showed up on the mystery trailer for the film. Be that as it may, the thought came to fruition to flip the gender on who might sing the melody (which is additionally performed by actress Sharon Rooney, as Miss Atlantis, in a scene) when Leib went over a YouTube video of Smashing Pumpkins doing “Baby Mine” in concert.
At that point, after Arcade Fire’s operator proposed them, it turned out Burton was a big fan of the band — and vice versa. “This all just happened in February . . . in about six days,” says Leib of the Arcade Fire version, which also features vocals by the band’s Régine Chassagne, Butler’s wife. “It’s not us, like, trying to whip up some hit single. It’s doing something pure for a movie.”
The magic is in the song — composed by Ned Washington and Frank Churchill — says Leib. “It’s the inherent emotion of it, “ he says. “It is the universal mother speaking to and comforting the universal child.”