Songfacts®:

• Composer Alan Menken and composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz wrote this for the Disney animated film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The pair first worked together on Pocahontas the year before, including the song "Colors Of The Wind." In this number, Frollo (Tony Jay) tries to manipulate hunchback Quasimodo (Tom Hulce) into staying hidden away in the cathedral by singing of the dangers of the world "Out There."
• Menken told Entertainment Weekly: "I had written this before Hunchback, but I didn't know what it was for, and then Stephen Schwartz was over for dinner and we talked about Hunchback a little bit. I said I have this piece of music I'm working on, and I played it for him, and he's like, 'That's it. That's 'Out There.'" We literally used that piece of music. The music is really all in the bells - it's French music borne out of that grand percussion. From the very top of the movie, we establish where this score is going to come from."