The jury’s still out on whether Tim Burton’s live-action remake of Disney’s Dumbo will sink or swim, but at this point we’re pretty certain it’ll make you cry.
A new trailer for the film promises an action-packed adventure at the circus, including a much livelier rendition of “Baby Mine,” the song that broke the hearts and spirits of millions in the 1941 classic. You know the one—it plays during the scene where Dumbo’s mother, locked in a cage, rocks her floppy-eared son in the crook of her trunk through steel bars. If you can watch that without sobbing uncontrollably and immediately calling your own mother, you have nerves of steel.
The band tapped to sing the updated “Baby Mine” for a new century? Arcade Fire, whose version debuts in the new film’s end credits. In a statement, Win Butler spoke about his deep personal connection to the Disney animation and his meaningful collaboration with wife Régine Chassagne and several other family members on the track.
“There is a scene with a locomotive in the original Dumbo that uses an instrument called the Sonovox that my grandpa Alvino Rey made famous in the 1930s. Every time I saw the film I thought it was him. When we were asked to do the [end credit version of ‘Baby Mine’], I immediately got all of my grandfather’s old guitars and wanted to play them in the song. My mom plays the harp on the track, my brother the theremin, my wife sings and plays drums, and our son even plays the triangle, as well as the rest of our ‘family’ in Arcade Fire. I will forever relate to the song thinking about the people I hold so dear that are ‘so precious to me.’ Listen for the cameo of my grandpa Alvino’s famous Sonovox at the end.”
Dumbo stars Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, and Danny DeVito. You can hear a preview of the song in the trailer below, and see the film in theaters on March 29.
