Songfacts®:

• This is the title song to the 1991 animated Disney movie Beauty And The Beast. It plays in a scene where Belle and The Beast get together for dining and dancing.
  
  In the film, it's sung by Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts the teapot. The version released as a single, which plays under the end credits, is a duet between Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson.
• The song tells the story of how Belle and The Beast - a real odd couple - find love. It's a tale as old as time: two creatures who seem very different coming together and falling in love.
• Celine Dion was well established in her native Canada when this song was released, but she was just entering the international stage. In America, she had just two hits under her belt: "Where Does My Heart Beat Now" and "(If There Was) Any Other Way." "Beauty And The Beast" was an early stop on her path to becoming one of the most popular singers of the '90s.
  
  Her duet partner on the track, Peabo Bryson, was a star in the world of R&B and had been recording since the '70s. In 1992 he teamed with Regina Belle for another Disney song: "A Whole New World" from Aladdin.
• "Beauty And The Beast" won the Academy Award for Best Song. Two other songs from the movie - oddly enough also starting with "B" - were also nominated for Best Song: "Belle" and "Be Our Guest." The Aladdin theme "A Whole New World" took the award the following year.
• Along with the other songs in the movie, "Beauty And The Beast" was written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, who had scored The Little Mermaid. Sadly, Ashman's life was cut short by AIDS shortly before the film came out and he never lived to see its victory for Best Song.
• Angela Lansbury was part of the ensembles that sang "Be Our Guest" and "Something There" in the film. She had done a Disney movie before, starring Bedknobs And Broomsticks in 1971, a role she landed when Julie Andrews turned it down. When she worked on Beauty And The Beast, she was also starring in the TV series Murder, She Wrote.
  
  Lansbury spoke reverently of her role as Mrs. Potts and particularly of the theme song, which she said she worked to inject with "beauty and wisdom."
• In 1994, Beauty And The Beast became the first Disney film to make it to Broadway. Beth Fowler played Mrs. Potts and sang this song on stage.
• In 2017, a live-action adaptation of Beauty And The Beast hit theaters with Emma Thompson performing this song as Mrs. Potts. John Legend and Ariana Grande teamed to do the version that was issued as a single and played under the credits.
• Steve Tyrell, Ray Conniff and Kenny Loggins are among those to cover this song.