Mellow Music from Disney World & Beyond!

If you’re stuck at home and want some relaxing music that’ll help you focus on work, studying, or just decompress. If you want a way to mentally transport yourself back to Walt Disney World, Disneyland, or the international parks, this list of mellow background music is for you!

This might already sound familiar. We have several posts about the Disney’s great BGMs, and how these loops are often overlooked, despite being essential to establishing the proper mood and atmosphere of each land in the parks. Most recently, we covered this topic a year ago in Our Most Played Disney Parks Music.

However, a lot has changed since then…and we wanted to return with another list of great Disney music you can legally stream for free from YouTube that will help you calm down, get focused, and take a vicarious trip to the Disney Parks. (That’s promising a lot, but this music can actually deliver on *all* of those things!)

Main Street Background Music (WDW, DLR & DLP) – The most recent version of the Main Street BGM, which was updated in 2012 to add “Married Life” from Pixar’s Up, plus over a dozen new tunes, arranged and recorded specifically for Main Street, U.S.A., will join many of the existing songs.

Main Street Evening Background Music (Disneyland Paris) – Disneyland Paris has two background music loops for Main Street (three if you count Christmas), with this more relaxed and sentimental evening loop played from 4 pm until park closing.

Pandora: World of Avatar Atmospheric Music (Animal Kingdom) – Like the land itself, this orchestral atmospheric music is cinematic and soaring, and feels like something out of a blockbuster film. At the same time, it’s incredibly relaxing and reminds me of late nights spent soaking up the ambiance in Pandora. If I close my eyes, I can almost see the bioluminescence!

The Land Area Music (Epcot) – Put this on and imagine sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of the farmhouse in Living with the Land. For some reason, it reminds me of being back at home in Michigan, sitting outside on an early fall day.

Original Journey Into Imagination Area Music and Ride Audio (Epcot) – This one is different from the rest of the list because it features attraction dialogue and more than just atmospheric music. I’m able to put this on “in the background” and still focus on whatever I’m doing, but your mileage my vary. The bigger issue for me is that hearing this is more bittersweet than relaxing and uplifting.

Disney Springs Area Music Loop (Walt Disney World) – For the longest time, I strongly disliked this playlist and its contemporary remixes of Disney songs. Honestly, I’m still not entirely sure whether I like this or just like how it reminds me of time spent at Disney Springs. That’s somewhat troubling, because we listen to this a lot.

Full Soarin’ Queue Loop (Epcot & DCA) – This soaring score is beautiful, uplifting, and truly embodies the spirit of Soarin. Even in normal times, that would be enough to earn it a spot on the list. Now, there’s something especially serene about the idea of hang-gliding over Malibu, Los Angeles, Yosemite, etc., feeling the wind on your face, and smelling those delightful scents!

The Living Seas Music Loop (Epcot) – Venture back in time to SeaBase Alpha with this loop, which is both soothing and inspiring. Want to vicariously live out your dream to become a marine biologist through your kid? Put this on while they learn to nudge them in the right direction! 😉

New Orleans Square/Rivers of America (Disneyland) – This is the music played along the Rivers of America waterfront (basically, the Fantasmic seating area) in New Orleans Square. It’s a great mix of Dixieland Jazz.

Disneyland Esplanade Area Music – The ultimate curated playlist of movie and attraction music that embodies a day at Disneyland. From the Fantasmic exit music to Winnie the Pooh, this background music has some incredible range and is one of our absolute favorites.

Sunshine Plaza Playlist (Disney’s California Adventure) – I am unabashed in my love for the Golden State–California is far and away my favorite place in the United States. While Sunshine Plaza was a pretty poor representation of California, this background music was its high point. This curated list of the songs that best exemplify CA is great for cruisin’ down PCH, hiking in Griffith Park, watching sunset at Santa Monica Pier…or sitting at home, longing to do those things.

Buena Vista Street Background Music (Disney California Adventure) – The new music that replaced the Sunshine Plaza playlist is also pretty good–just decidedly different.

Cape Cod (Tokyo DisneySea & Beyond) – Soothing seaside sounds from Duffy’s hometown at Tokyo DisneySea. You should also recognize this music if you spend a lot of time upstairs at Columbia Harbour House in Walt Disney World. (I love the Christmas BGM even more, but that’s sadly not available online, at least not to my knowledge.)

Port Discovery (Tokyo DisneySea & Beyond) – More soothing seaside sounds, but with imbued with more futurism and optimism…which shouldn’t be surprising since a lot of this loop is ported over from EPCOT Center.

Space Mountain Queue (Walt Disney World) – One of my most strongly-held “unpopular opinions” is that Magic Kingdom has the best version of Space Mountain. The Star Tunnel music is one huge reason why. (Plus the queue, load area, and post show.)

Mediterranean Harbor Porto Paradiso Music (Tokyo DisneySea) – We’ve only stayed at Hotel MiraCosta once, but when we did, we left our room’s windows cracked all night so this delightful background music would wake us up in the morning. This reminds me of that and rope dropping Tokyo DisneySea, my favorite theme park in the world and place I want to first visit once this is all behind us…

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YOUR THOUGHTS

Which Disney Parks music does the best job of mellowing you out? Anything that is particularly effective at helping you focus on work or studying? Are you one of the oddballs who uses Disney music to exercise? Any of these that you love or hate? Do you agree or disagree with my favorites? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!