Songfacts®:

• Encanto is a Disney computer-animated movie that follows a multigenerational Colombian family, the Madrigals. They are led by Abuela Alma Madriga, a matriarch whose children and grandchildren – except for the youngest grandchild Mirabel - possess magical powers that help them serve the villagers in their rural community.
  
  The film features a soundtrack by In the Heights and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. "What Else Can I Do?" is primarily sung by the glamorous Isabela Madrigal (voiced by American actress Diane Guerrero), whose magic gift is making flowers bloom everywhere. The oldest granddaughter of Abuela Alma Madriga, Isabela is considered the golden child of her family, but she secretly struggles to maintain her perfect image.
• This song takes place just after Isabela has made a cactus. Tired of growing "rows and rows of roses. Flor de mayo, by the mile," she wonders "What Else Can I Do?" She confesses to Mirabel (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz) how the expectation to produce only perfect plants and behave in a glamorous way weighs heavily on her. Isabela wants to grow new and different flowers and be her authentic, imperfect, self.
  
  I wanna feel the shiver of something new
  I'm so sick of pretty, I want something true, don't you?
• Lin-Manuel Miranda took inspiration from the '90s rock en español movement. "A lot of my favorite rock songs in the '90s were Spanish rock songs," he told Associated Press. "I was thinking of Shakira and Robby Rosa. It's weirdly a '90s throwback for me, kind of the way that 'Lost In The Woods' is like a great Peter Cetera throwback for (Frozen 2 composer Jonathan) Groff. That was my '90s Rock en Español throwback, it just happens to be in English."