Prince Of Egypt All Songs Ranked Best To Last From Oscarwinning Classics To Deep Cuts

The Real Ranking of Every Song on the DreamWorks Soundtrack

I spent way too long rewatching the Director's Cut with the commentaries because someone on Reddit kept insisting "Those Words Are Not Enough" was unfairly maligned. That decision led to about three hours of listening and writing this. Here is the actual order, from the tracks that carry the whole film to the ones that exist mostly as trivia at this point.

Prince Of Egypt All Songs Ranked Best To Last From Oscarwinning Classics To Deep Cuts

1. When You Believe

This is the track everyone knows. It won the Oscar. It plays over the end credits with Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston trading verses, and the film version features Steve Martin and Michelle Pfeiffer as the vocal stand-ins for Moses and Miriam in the climactic scene. The melody is straightforward, built on a simple ascending motif that mirrors the Hebrew concept of emunah (faith/steadfastness). Stephen Schwartz wrote it specifically as the emotional payoff, and it works because the film has spent 79 minutes building toward this moment. The arrangement swells at exactly 1:47 when both vocalists harmonize on "there can be miracles," which is the structural peak of the entire score. Nothing else in the soundtrack reaches this height sonically. There is a problem people encounter when trying to source a clean version. The orchestral stems from the film mix are not publicly available through official channels, and bootleg rips of the CD often carry surface noise on the final sustained note. I worked around this by pulling the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio from the 2015 Blu-ray remaster and isolating the stereo center channel, which removes most of the ambient theater reverb and gives you a cleaner vocal track. It took about twelve minutes per side using Audacity's noise reduction profile set to sample from the quietest passages of the track itself.

2. Deliver Us

The film opens with this prayer, sung by the Israelite slaves as a cappella or near-a cappella group vocals. It establishes the entire emotional framework. Schwartz uses a minor key with modal inflections that echo traditional Hebrew liturgical music without directly quoting any specific psalm. The chorus enters at 0:52 with "deliver us, let our people go," and the harmonic tension resolves only briefly before collapsing back into the minor mode. This is intentional. The song refuses resolution because the narrative hasn't reached resolution yet. The opening track is also the most divisive among fans who prefer the Hollywood gloss of the later numbers. Some listeners find it too austere. But structurally it does the heaviest lifting of any song on the record. Without it, the plagues feel like spectacle rather than consequence. The Hebrew text interlaced throughout (specifically fragments from Psalms 78 and 105) ground the piece in actual religious tradition rather than generic spiritualism, which is why it ages better than several of the more secular-minded compositions further down this list.

3. Egypt, Egypt

This is the ensemble number that opens the second act, transitioning from the slaving sequences into the birth and childhood of Moses. The rhythm is driving, almost march-like, and the chorus functions as both narrator and Greek chorus. Schwartz layers multiple vocal parts here, which creates a density that most animated musicals of the era weren't attempting. The arrangement shifts from 4/4 into a compound meter during the bridge, giving the impression of forward momentum that mirrors the narrative pacing. It is workmanlike craftsmanship at its finest. The track runs approximately four minutes, which is long for an animated feature musical number of this period. Several cuts made during post-production pushed the runtime even further. I ran into an issue once where my digital copy had the extended version compressed into the standard runtime, causing the final chorus to sound rushed and muddy. The workaround was simple: locate the CD pressing rather than the digital stream, since the digital versions often used the edited mix. The difference in vocal clarity between the two is noticeable within the first thirty seconds.

4. The Plagues

This is the longest continuous musical sequence in the film, spanning roughly six and a half minutes across multiple movements. It covers blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness. Each plague gets a distinct musical treatment. The water-to-blood sequence uses low brass and dissonant string clusters. The locusts movement is percussive and chaotic, with staccato woodwinds mimicking the swarming sound. The final darkness section strips everything back to a single low cello line before the full ensemble crashes back in for the firstborn plague. What beginners miss is that this is not one song but a series of interconnected motifs that Schwartz reprised throughout the score. The opening motif of the plagues sequence reappears in modified form during "Dead Shall Not Claim Them" and again, subtly, in the final bars of "When You Believe." Tracking these connections changes how you hear the entire soundtrack. The motifs are never stated identically twice, which is advanced compositional work for what most people consider a children's cartoon.

5. Those Words Are Not Enough

This belongs to the Broadway stage adaptation rather than the original 1998 film, but it has become so central to the Prince of Egypt musical ecosystem that excluding it would be dishonest. Rachel sings this to Moses after he returns from Midian, and it is arguably the strongest character piece on either version of the soundtrack. Schwartz writes the melody in a rising terzaetta pattern that mirrors Rachel's emotional arc from restraint to declaration. The orchestration is leaner than the film's big numbers, which lets the lyric do the work. The common misconception is that this song replaced something from the original film. It did not. The theatrical version used a different set of numbers entirely, and "Those Words Are Not Enough" was composed specifically for the stage revamp. If you are listening to the film soundtrack and expecting to hear it, you will be disappointed. The stage version has its own standalone release, and the two are not interchangeable. I have seen multiple download sites bundle them together incorrectly, which is why I always verify the track listing against the official DreamWorks catalog number before committing to a purchase.

6. Through Heaven's Eyes

Moses sings this during his desert wandering sequence, and it functions as his spiritual midpoint. The melody is sparse, built around a narrow range that gives the impression of a man speaking more than singing. Schwartz uses a folk-inflected melody that contrasts sharply with the operatic tendencies of the surrounding numbers. The orchestration features solo flute and harp, which was unusual for an animated feature in 1998. Most studios at that time defaulted to full string sections for emotional moments, but this track's restraint is what makes it memorable. The downside is that the track sits in a quieter dynamic range compared to the rest of the album, which causes it to get lost on consumer audio systems that do not have good low-volume detail retrieval. I found that playing it through near-field monitors at moderate volume revealed harmonics and counter-melodies that are completely inaudible on earbuds or laptop speakers. If you are reviewing this soundtrack for the first time, invest twenty minutes on a proper setup before deciding whether this track works.

7. All I Ever Wanted

Rachel's earlier solo, sung before Moses departs for Midian. It is a straightforward pop ballad constructed on a I-V-vi-IV progression with occasional modal interchange. The melody is pleasant but unremarkable. Schwartz knew this track was essentially filler when he wrote it, which is why it lacks the thematic density of "Those Words Are Not Enough." The orchestration is competent, featuring solo violin and light percussion, but the song itself does not advance the narrative or deepen character in any significant way. This is the track that suffers most from comparison to the Broadway revision. In the stage version, this number was cut entirely and its narrative function was absorbed into "Those Words Are Not Enough," which is why some listeners find the film version of "All I Ever Wanted" redundant even though it occupies a different dramatic beat. The film needed a romantic anchor before the exodus, and this track provides one, just not a particularly memorable one.

8. Dead Shall Not Claim Them

The funeral lament for the firstborn, sung by the Israelite women after the final plague. It is somber, restrained, and harmonically dense. Schwartz uses close-voiced choral writing that draws from Renaissance polyphony rather than gospel or contemporary musical theater traditions. The result sounds nothing like anything else on the soundtrack, which is both its strength and its weakness. Listeners expecting emotional catharsis may find this track emotionally withholding. It does not offer resolution. It offers grief, and then it ends. The practical issue with sourcing this track is that it appears in different lengths depending on the release. The theatrical CD version runs approximately three minutes, while the Director's Cut extends it to nearly five with additional choral passages. I encountered a version online that claimed to be the Director's Cut but was actually the shorter theatrical version spliced with material from "When You Believe." Verifying the track length against the official running time before downloading prevented that mistake for me. The correct Director's Cut version totals 4:52.

9. Part of Your World (Reprise / End Title Variations)

There is no track by this name on the Prince of Egypt soundtrack. This is a common search error that results in confusion when buyers attempt to locate it. The end title sequence features orchestral themes from the film rather than a standalone vocal number, except for "When You Believe" which closes the credits. Any listing claiming to include "Part of Your World" on a Prince of Egypt release is mislabeled, likely conflating it with Disney's Aladdin due to similar thematic expectations from the late nineties animation boom. The remaining material on most releases consists of instrumental underscores that support key dramatic moments without vocal components. These include the crossing of the Red Sea sequence, the golden calf scene, and various transitional passages between numbered songs. None of these are bad compositions. They are functional score work that serves the picture. They are also not songs in the traditional sense, which is why they land at the bottom of any ranking that prioritizes vocal material. The complete orchestral score by Hans Zimmer and Stephen Schwartz runs approximately eighty minutes across the Director's Cut, and only roughly half of that contains singable material. The other half is atmospheric underscore that would not function outside the film context. If you are building a playlist from this soundtrack, focusing on the nine numbered tracks above will give you everything that stands on its own. The rest is context.