I Wanna Be Like You from Jungle Book. Composed by Robert & Richard Sherman
I Wanna Be Like You (The Monkey Song) is a song from Walt Disney's 1967 film The Jungle Book. The song was written by songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman and was performed by singer and musician Louis Prima as King Louie, with Phil Harris providing additional vocals as Baloo the bear. Walt Disney sought to make his version of The Jungle Book a lot more upbeat than the Rudyard Kipling-penned source material. The Sherman brothers were tasked with coming up with crazy ways to have fun with [the music]. Working with concept art of what the monkeys would look like, Richard Sherman said he and his brother aimed for a jazz sound, with a Dixieland-like melody. He added that when we first got an idea for 'I Wanna Be Like You,' we said an ape swings from a tree, and he's the king of apes. We'll make him 'the king of the swingers.' That's the idea, we'll make him a jazz man.”
