Kimbra sexes up Disney's forgotten musical treasure from Snow White Fantasyland: Grammy Award-winner Kimbra puts her own spin on an eerie Disney classic. When Kimbra was hunting for a song to cover for Universal Music's We Love Disney compilation - part of a wave of new projects inspired by the success of the Frozen soundtrack - she did something typically weird and wonderful. Instead of reaching for a song off Frozen, Kimbra opted for an odd choice: the ethereal I'm Wishing from the 1937 movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, without realising its significance. I'm Wishing was the first song on the first commercially released soundtrack. Oh wow. That is cool, so rad," Kimbra says over the line from the United States, where she has just completed a 17-date tour ending with an appearance on Late Show with David Letterman. High note: The wishing well scene from Snow White and Seven Dwarfs. She returns to Australia for headline shows in Sydney and Melbourne this week. I'm Wishing also sealed a strange and sad fate for its original singer, Italian-American Adriana Caselotti. Although Caselotti provided the voice for Snow White, she wasn't credited and Disney allegedly blocked her attempts to develop a career, because it wanted her associated only with Snow White. But she remained loyal to the company and Snow White until her death in 1997 at age 80. Kimbra says perhaps because of that the song was an eerie mix of innocence "with an air of darkness desperation to it." There is a weight and a responsibility to do it well and also give it a new sense of life. The original has this eerie voice echoed back to Snow White from the well . . . [I wanted] to bring that spookiness out. There's a lot of psychedelia in Disney films. Kimbra aimed for a "new weight and . . . a sexiness, too; [there's] something very kind of sensual about the way we chose to depict that song." She plans to work the song into her live set list, although possibly not in time for her Australian shows. We Love Disney is part of several big investments that film and music giants are set to take because of Frozen. A French version came out last year and the Australian version was released last Friday. Aside from Kimbra, it features country-pop trio The McClymonts nailing Idina Menzel's Grammy-winning hit Let It Go, Dannii Minogue singing That's How You Know from Enchanted and also Voice winners Anja Nissen and Harrison Craig, and Kate Miller-Heidke. All songs will be released as a singles. Kimbra has a theory about why the Frozen soundtrack became one of 2014's biggest albums, and why many are predicting a resurgence in animated musicals. "There's so much imagination and abandon in that music; it doesn't play by the same rules," she says. It feels more truthful, not the same tired pop coming out of the factory we've heard a million times. In children's films, characters explode into song out of a need for expression: longing, or love or loneliness or whatever. That's what music is about, uplifting the soul. We Love Disney is out now and Kimbra plays at the Metro Theatre in Sydney on Thursday, November 20 and the Hi Fi in Melbourne on Saturday, November 22.