"I Want" Song



"''I want it all

I want it all

I want it all

And I want it'' NOW"

- Queen

In most American musicals, the hero is a little guy (or girl) who doesn't amount to much right now, but dreams of a brighter future. Usually, they do this with an I Want Song, where they sing of how this little town is too small and they know there's a great big world out there for them. This is always so the audience can identify with them. Because the hero, just like you, isn't a movie star or a princess or anybody else officially special, but is really special deep down if they try, and (unlike those conformist drones around you) wants to try. The lyric to the song may well include the actual words "I want" or some variant thereof to hammer the point home.

If well written, the I Want Song can do an excellent job of establishing the character of the protagonist and their one burning desire that will motivate their actions from here on. (This motivation is particularly important given that they will often be asked to make difficult choices and sacrifices in order to achieve their goal, and their response to those choices will become a mark of their moral development.)

If written badly, however, the lyrics may convey only the vaguest sense of longing that allows nearly anyone in the audience to associate with the hero by proxy, but doesn't establish enough to motivate the plot. This gets even worse if the hero doesn't actually do anything to achieve their dreams, but happens to stumble into something big later. A lot of writers realize this, because the I Want Song is the single biggest target for a Dark Reprise. If there isn't a song specifically for the most unhappy part of the hero's life (usually halfway through Act II), it will be a Dark Reprise of their earlier song. Alternatively, if / when they achieve their goal, they may sing a triumphant reprise of their I Want song upon doing so at the very end of the story.

Some musicals use this song as an opportunity for social commentary, focusing almost as much on what the characters are trying to escape (usually crushing poverty) as on what they're trying to achieve. In many older musicals, however, the song is about nothing more dramatic than the heroine's romantic fantasies.

A variant (which can be either vague or specific) is the bittersweet I Want Song, which is not about feeling elated with the hero, but about turning them into The Woobie. If the song is vague, it shows that they've been crushed by life and can't even imagine a better world. If the song is specific, what they want is absurdly small or big, to show how their awful life has made it impossible to have a sense of proportion. This is not to be confused with a straightforward song about their rotten life, like "Hasa Diga Eebowai" from The Book Of Mormon.

It can easily be argued that any song in a book musical can be interpreted as an "I Want" song. Those who've studied musical theatre performance (or acting at all, for that matter) know that a character never opens their mouth onstage without an objective. In musical theatre, song is the method of communication of the characters' wants in that universe. No matter what… the person singing ALWAYS wants something.

Anime and Manga

 * "Koi wa Nandarou?" in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is an I Want Song that's also Magic Music. It's slightly more upbeat and energetic, though. Actually, a lot more.

Films -- Animation

 * The Disney Animated Canon, being mostly musicals, has many examples (nearly always sung by the princess of the moment):
 * "I'm Wishing" from Snow White and The Seven Dwarves.
 * And its Affectionate Parody, "True Love's Kiss", in Enchanted.
 * "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes", from Cinderella.
 * There's also "More Than A Dream" from Cinderella III: A Twist in Time. Inverted with the Tear Jerker reprise, where Cinderella resigns herself to the fact that her dreams might never come true after all.
 * Also, Cinderella's step-sister Anastasia gets her own I Want Song at the end of Perfectly Perfect where she hopes to someday find someone who will love her.
 * "In a World Of My Own", from Alice in Wonderland (becomes a case of Be Careful What You Wish For).
 * "I Wonder", from Sleeping Beauty.
 * "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid. However, the reprise is arguably the most famous scene in the entire movie.
 * The Broadway musical added an I Want Song for Prince Eric ("Her Voice") as well.
 * "I Want the Good Times Back" from The Little Mermaid's Broadway adaptation is both an I Want Song and a Villain Song.
 * "Belle (Reprise)" from Beauty and The Beast.
 * Again, the Broadway musical added an I Want Song for the male lead ("If I Can't Love Her").
 * Also in the musical version and later added into the special edition DVD is a rare "mass I Want Song", where all the enchanted objects sing about being "Human Again".
 * "Jack's Lament" in The Nightmare Before Christmas is more or less one of these. Jack is famous and adored in his role as the Pumpkin King, but craves fresh change and meaningful inspiration. The song's less upbeat and more sorrowing than the standard. Some of Jack's later songs also fit.
 * Especially "What's This" which even climaxes with the line "I want it! Oh ,I want it! Oh, I want it for my own!"
 * Possibly deconstructed in The Lion King with "I Just Can't Wait To Be King", which is an I Want Song whose narrative purpose is to paint the singer as an immature egotist. (And to ironically contrast with his refusal to reign when he actually should.) The in-story purpose is so that Simba and Nala can dump their babysitter. Catchy, though.
 * "Just Around the River Bend" from Pocahontas, possibly the example on this page with the vaguest "I Want" lyrics of all -- it basically boils down to "I want something, but I have no idea what that is. But I'm sure I want it."
 * Actually, the song is about just that - she wants that feeling of not knowing what's coming. She doesn't know what she wants, she just knows she wants it to come, and she wants it to be a surprise, unexpected, something to discover. If she knew what she wanted, she might as well and be done.
 * One of Animaniacs' funniest parodies was their Pocahontas parody, with the song "Just The Same Old Heroine" parodying the predictability of this trope.
 * Also from Pocahontas we get "Mine Mine Mine", which gives us an 'I Want' for both the Villan, who desires gold, and the Love Intrest, who just wants adventure.
 * "Out There" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
 * Also "God Help the Outcasts", except with pathos instead of excitement.
 * Not to mention what may be the darkest I Want Song ever sung in a children's movie: Frollo's Villain Song, "Hellfire", where he prays for God to "Destroy Esmerelda, and let her taste the fires of Hell! Or else let her be mine and mine alone!"
 * "Go The Distance" from Hercules.
 * "Reflection" and "A Girl Worth Fighting For" from Mulan.
 * And in the sequel, there's "I Want To Be Like Other Girls".
 * "After Today" from A Goofy Movie.
 * "Strangers Like Me" from Tarzan.
 * "I Wanna Be Like You" from The Jungle Book.
 * "I'm Still Here (Jim's Theme)" and from Treasure Planet. It was made by John Reznick of The Goo Goo Dolls.
 * "Almost There" from The Princess and The Frog could be considered a subversion, in that Tiana is singing not that she wants something, but rather that she's close to getting it because she's worked hard to earn it.
 * The movie also has a straight I Want Song in "When We're Human" (hmm, sounds suspiciously like the Beauty and the Beast I Want Song)...which then also gets subverted when Tiana rolls her eyes at it all and spends her verse on how she's actually going to work to get she wants ("When I'm a human being/At least I'll act like one...")
 * "When Will My Life Begin?" from Tangled. Rapunzel sings about how she longs to see the world beyond her tower.
 * Also, "I've Got A Dream" is another Crowd Want Song. The thugs at the Snuggly Duckling sing about all the very non-violent dreams they have.
 * The song from Quest for Camelot the top quote refers to is "On My Father's Wings", performed by The Corrs.
 * The Barbie movies have several extremely amazing I Want Songs. One of their most lyrical, well-written, and inspiring I Want Songs premiered in Barbie as the Island Princess and it is "Need to Know", a ballad shared by the two protagonists of the film and also doubles as a means of illustrating their feelings for each other without saying it straight out.
 * Barbie Princess and the Pauper has "Free".
 * "City of Light" from The Brave Little Toaster.
 * "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail plays with this, as the singers know exactly what they want - to be reunited - but have no idea how to get there. "Dreams to Dream" in the sequel, plays it more straight.
 * Inverted and subverted with "All I Ever Wanted" from The Prince of Egypt, where Moses tries to reassure himself about his place as Egyptian royalty after his long-lost sister, Miriam, reveals his true heritage.
 * "Journey to the Past" from the movie Anastasia.
 * Arguably, A Rumor In St. Petersburg from earlier in the film also fits this for some of the other characters.
 * Stretching the trope, Rasputin's "In The Dark of the Night" could also (be made to) fit.
 * "Soon" from Thumbelina.
 * Pixar's WALL-E plays with this first by not actually being a musical; second, by having WALL-E's "I Want" song be a pair of songs from Hello Dolly: "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", which is an upbeat "I Want" song about leaving a small town rut and going to the big city, and "It Only Takes A Moment", which in the original Jerry Herman musical was closer to a Final Love Duet.
 * Veggie Tales: The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's - If "Beyond the Barn" doesn't fit this to a T, I don't know what does.
 * Hoodwinked: "Great Big World" - sung by Red Riding Hood (voiced by Anne Hathaway).
 * Parodied in the The Movie of South Park, where it's combined with a Villain Song performed by Satan. It's an oddly poignant yet silly lament about how happy he would be if he could live on Earth.
 * "Someday I Can Fly" and its reprise from Katy the Caterpillar.
 * The Swan Princess has "Far Longer Than Forever".

Films -- Live-Action

 * "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz is perhaps the most famous example of this kind of song.
 * From the same film, "If I Only Had a Brain/a Heart/the Noive".
 * "The Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie.
 * "Something Better" from Muppet Treasure Island.
 * "(Gotta Get Outta) Kansas" from Muppet Wizard Of Oz - their equivilent to "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".
 * In The Producers, when Bloom realizes that he's going to take up Bialystock's offer of entering the showbiz, his song lists all sorts of things he could have, and how he wants to be a producer - "Because it's everything [he's] not."
 * "Santa Fe" from Newsies, where Batman dreams of life in the country out West. Bit of a Tear Jerker when he gets to the line "I ain't getting any younger"; bear in mind, he's seventeen at this point, and already incredibly world-weary.
 * The short film Once Upon A Honeymoon, featured in episode 701 of Mystery Science Theater 3000, featured a housewife singing such a song, but while it started out wishing for "a castle in the sky" and similar ethereal language, it quickly degenerated into wishing for a less drippy faucet, a living room set, a bedroom motif that Servo identified as "sort of a westerny-ginghamy-oriental-modernesque-prairie-school-type thing" ... and lots of telephones. (The short was, in fact, an ad from Bell Telephone, made at a time when all phones had to be rented from the phone company and colors other than black cost extra.)
 * Quite a few of the songs in The Wicker Man are combinations of this and the Villain Song, and all of them are about sex in some way or another. Interestingly, the hero's only song is definitely not an example, because it's a musical version of the 23rd Psalm, and starts with "The Lord is my shepherd \ I shall not want".
 * In the 1974 movie of The Little Prince, the Pilot has "I Need Air", about his love of flight serving as a way to escape the dreary adult world.
 * A more materialistic version: Disney's High School Musical has Sharpay Evans first singing in High School Musical 2 that she wants "Fabulous" (I want more!/I want fabulous...) then talking her brother Ryan into wanting everything ("I Want It All": ''I want it, I want it, want it: The fame and fortune and more...').
 * One could argue that in High School Musical 3, Sharpay (and Whatshisname)'s I Want It All could qualify. Later in the film, the song is reprised by Whatshisname himself, Ryan, who seems to be well on his well to getting it all.
 * "Infected" from Repo the Genetic Opera could qualify, as Shilo sings about yearning to venture outside of her room as she damns her genetics. Or, "Mark It Up" for the villainous equivalent.
 * Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory crosses this trope with Villain Song in Veruca's number "I Want It Now". ("It" = everything she can think of.)
 * And of course the "I've Got A Golden Ticket" song.
 * In Cannibal the Musical the heroes sing a song about what they want in life called "That's All I'm Asking For".
 * Fame! I'm gonna live forever!
 * Parodied in Monty Python and The Holy Grail -- Prince Herbert repeatedly attempts to sing one of these, but his father always puts a stop to it. It is first when Herbert turns it into a Crowd Song he manages to get one started.
 * "One Day I'll Fly Away" from Moulin Rouge
 * The title character in Muriels Wedding borrows some of the greatest hits of ABBA for this.
 * "Maybe This Time" from Cabaret. A rather sad one.
 * Non-musical example: R.E.M.'s "The Great Beyond" from Man On the Moon. Specifically, it's an I Want Song for Andy Kaufman.
 * Going Back Home from Bran Nue Dae, sung by Annie and Uncle Tadpole while on the road to Broome.

Live-Action TV
"We're gonna have more fun and be less weird / Than the first two years combiiiiiiined!"
 * Three words. Joxer The Mighty. It's very much his I Want Song, even though as the series progresses it gradually becomes somewhat nearer (albeit in a very overstated way) to an I Am Song.
 * One episode reveals that he REWROTE this song from one his mean brother would sing when they were kids about all of Joxer's flaws (cowardly, weak, etc...). I'm not sure what the original version of hte song would fall under in that case (an inverted Villain Sucks Song maybe?)
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer's musical episode has "Going Through The Motions". Joss even mentions it being the I Want Song in the commentary.
 * Buffy actually gets TWO I wants: this one and "Something to Sing About".
 * Spike's "Rest in Peace" is a subversion. What he wants is Buffy, but he goes through the entire song trying (badly) to convince us he has no interest in her.
 * Also spoofed with Dawn, a character who seems tailor-made for this type of song since she's always really needy anyway. She gets through the first two lines of her song before it's interrupted by Mooks who promptly kidnap her.
 * In Monty Python's Flying Circus this is parodied when a barber breaks into song about his dream of becoming a lumberjack.
 * Whose Line Is It Anyway had a Scene To Rap game which had Colin entering last as a robber, who after demanding everyone's stuff (in rhyme, of course) started asking for just about everything else, which was finally topped off with him lampshading the whole deal by breaking rhyme, shouting and announcing "I'm crazy!"
 * "Go Beyond" from Lexx describes Kai's yearning to escape the cloistered, stultifying immortality of his elders, ending with "I want more!"
 * As part of the notoriously bad 1989 Oscar ceremony, a gaggle of youthful Hollywood up-and-comers performed a production number featuring the original song "(I Want to Be) An Oscar Winner". (This was the same ceremony that gave the world an opening number that included a Rob Lowe-Snow White duet on "Proud Mary".)
 * The Whitest Kids U Know have probably one of the weirdest examples: Lee Harvey Oswald and JFK singing a duet about wanting be find a place "where I can do - what I want to - and all at my own pace" and "a place where I - can just unwind - and work on my own mind."
 * The Stephen Sondheim telemusical Evening Primrose has two explicit "I want" songs: When? and Take Me to the World. The first two, "If You Can Find Me I'm Here" and "I Remember" have elements of "I want" as well.
 * The opening of Community's third season. The kicker?

Music
"I want to be rich and I want lots of money
 * "I wanna be a Billionaire so fuckin bad"
 * Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" is an I Want song without a musical.
 * The Smiths' "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want".
 * Boys Don't Cry's "I Wanna Be A Cowboy".
 * "Respect" by Aretha Franklin could also be considered an I Want Song.
 * As could the original version, by Otis Redding.
 * I want it all. I want it all. I want it all. And I want it now!
 * Also, "I Want to Break Free".
 * And "Somebody to Love".
 * "Je veux" by ZAZ.
 * "Quiero" by Shakira. Obviously.
 * I Wanna Fuck Your Brains out, Eat You Out, and I Wanna Rape You by GG Allin.
 * "All I Want" by The Offspring.
 * Toad the Wet Sprocket has a similarly titled song.
 * "I Did it All For You" is a hidden 'I Want' that you almost have to use Fridge Logic to find how it could apply the title of the song as opposed to an 'I Want'.
 * There's a song called "I Want It All" on the Eurythmics' reunion album, Peace.
 * Go look at some Ramones albums, and count how many song titles contain the phrase "I Wanna" or "I Don't Wanna".
 * The pop standard "The Man I Love".
 * Lily Allen's "The Fear":

I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny

I want loads of clothes and fuckloads of diamonds

I heard people die while they are trying to find them"

"I never wanna hear you say
 * More of a parody really.
 * CAKE's Short Skirt/Long Jacket. "I want a girl with a mind like a diamond / I want a girl who knows what's best..."
 * The KISS song titled "I want you", double as Intercourse With You as thats what the singer wants.
 * Inverted by, of all people, The Backstreet Boys.

I want it that way"

"I want a chickenwire cage with all (my) old ex-es in it in my attic
 * Swedish Girl Group/dansband FACE-84 has a released a song called "Jag vill ha dig" ("I Want You"). Nothing noteworthy about that, you may say, until you consider their most famous song, "Alla gamla x" (roughly, "All Those Old Ex-Boyfriends"), which was actually a candidate to represent Sweden in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. This number starts as a generic Break Up Song but quickly (d)evolves into more devious stages. Its lyrics include the lines:

Where I can take them out once in a while and give them each a kind pet on the cheek

I will be so tender and understanding

Encouraging and comforting

And then they will scream:

"Please take me back!""

"I'm so tired of giving up, I am so tired of giving in
 * "I Want Love" by Elton John.
 * "All I Wanted Was You" by Bon Jovi.
 * "I Want to Know What Love Is" by Foreigner.
 * "All I Want For Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey.
 * Two cute kid songs for Christmas are "All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth" and "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas". The Chipmunks have a song about how they really want Christmas to come soon. Simon and Theodore want toy planes while Alvin wants a hula hoop.
 * "Breaking Out" by The Protomen.

You wake up knowing things should change, not knowing where to begin"

"I want twelve or thirteen dressing rooms where I can swan about,
 * Mitch Benn's "I Want" is a string of Diva-ish outrageous demands:

Six hundredweight of Smarties with the pink ones taken out,

A limo in the dressing room to drive me to the stage,

And twenty Fillipino girls of varying height and age."

""Ich will keine Texte mehr, nur noch Rattatataa
 * Mitch's "The Lonesome Fuhrer" is a bizarre one: It's Adolf Hitler singing that he wants to be a cowboy!
 * The song "There's Gotta Be More To Life" is of Stacie Orrico portraying various people, a trashy teen mom, a boring business woman, an unhappy waitress, a thief, a secret spy etc.. and they all are desiring something better than the life they're living.
 * "Rich Girl" by Gwen Stefani and Eve, being based on another I Want Song, "If I Was A Rich Man" from Fiddler On the Roof.
 * "Northwest Passage" is about wanting to find the titular sea route through the NWT/ Nunavut island chains.
 * "World Is Mine" by Hatsune Miku.
 * Kimbra's "Settle Down".
 * "Star" from David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, as the protagonist imagines how great life would be if he were a rock star.
 * Insane Clown Posse's "I Want My Shit". The "shit" in question being, a rusty axe, a fat woman named Bridgett and a sip of Faygo.
 * Subverted in Wir werden jetzt Stars (We now become stars) by KIZ, in which this hiphop cliché is parodied:

Will schief singen trotzdem Applaus wie Chaka Khan

Ich will doppelt soviel Geld, wie alle anderen aus Prinzip

Ich will nur zu Promo zwecken demonstrieren gegen Krieg."

("I no longer want music, only bam-bam-bam,

Want to sing badly and get applause,

I want to be paid double on principle,

I want to demonstrate against war for publicity only.")"

New Media

 * "The Napkin Song" from Improv Everywhere's abbreviated "Food Court Musical".

Opera

 * Gian-Carlo Menotti's "The Consul" has two: "When will we see the end of all this?" for the Mother, and "To This We've Come" for Magda Sorell.

Radio

 * Ira Glass included a Want Song into the beginning of This American Life, after talking about the phenomenon for a little bit. It was about how he hoped his listeners would stay interested in the stories.
 * Invoked in an episode of I'm Sorry Ill Read That Again called The Raymond Nostril Story, a parody of musicals. The protagonist desperately wants to be an entertainer, and finally gets to an audition where he has the chance to wow everyone with his talent. His girlfriend tells him to get out there and amaze everyone, and he says that he will, "but first I'm gonna sing an "I'm Gonna Make It Big" song". He does so...and is then told that the auditions are over.

Theater
"Rosabella: We've been going home every night, kinda wanting something... but wanting what, Cleo?
 * West Side Story has two: "Something's Coming" (quoted above) and "Somewhere (There's a Place For Us)". Both are spectacularly vague. "Somewhere" gets a classic Dark Reprise, even though it does indeed turn out to be (in a bittersweet way) all worth it.
 * Don't forget "America".
 * "Waiting for Life" from Once on this Island.
 * Arguably, "Some Girls".
 * "Purpose" from Avenue Q, which is a bit of a parody of this, as it references "Something's Coming".
 * "Where is Love" and "Who Will Buy?" from Oliver!
 * "Castle on a Cloud" from Les Miserables is an example of a bittersweet ones.
 * To some extent, "In My Life", at least Cosette's part, is a bit of an I Want.
 * Also, "On My Own" could be considered a subversion, because the song is basically Eponine saying that she wants to be in a relationship with Marius, yet by the end of the song she is aware that he will never return her affections and he only loves her in her fantasies.
 * Same with "I Dreamed a Dream", in which Fantine lets go of all her wants and resigns herself to her misery.
 * "Wouldn't it Be Loverly" from My Fair Lady.
 * "Somewhere That's Green" from Little Shop of Horrors, which gets a truly Dark Reprise.
 * Having seen the play for the first time over 20 years ago, I JUST got the dark joke, thanks for pointing it out!
 * Despite being discounted in the opening description, Seymour's solo section in "Skid Row" definitely counts ("I constantly pray I'll get outta here ... I'd do I don't know what to get out of Skid Row!")
 * That one is also rather dark; Seymour is basically saying that he wants someone/something else to get him out of Skid Row, and that he'd give anything to get it. Then Audrey II comes along...
 * Really, "Feed Me (Git It)" is this all over.
 * "Mushnik and Son" is a somewhat villainous version. ("Seymour, I want to be your dad...") "The Meek Shall Inherit" also qualifies on several levels, though Seymour's part in it is a bit of a subversion--he doesn't really want what he's signing up for, and he's only doing it so Audrey (whom he does want) will love him.
 * "Corner of the Sky" from Pippin has the protagonist promises not to settle for the ordinary and to search for a higher state of fulfillment. His big dreams are a wild goose chase, keeping him from the important things in life. The deranged attempt at a Bright Reprise in the final scene leads to spectacular failure.
 * "Extraordinary" from the same show is nominally an I Am Song, but Pippin's trying to convince himself he's as great as he aspires to be is obviously delusional.
 * In Guys and Dolls, Sky and Sarah actually sing "I'll Know" as a duet, though not really to each other. Their duet ends in an embrace (what they want is each other) - followed by a slap (they don't know it yet).
 * "An English Teacher" from Bye Bye Birdie.
 * As well as "Spanish Rose" and "A Lot Of Livin'".
 * "I Want to Be a Producer" from the musical, The Producers.
 * "I Need To Know", "No One Knows Who I Am", "Girls of the Night" and "Someone Like You" from Jekyll and Hyde: The Musical.
 * And "Sympathy and Tenderness", which gets its Dark Reprise.
 * And who could forget "Tomorrow" from Annie?
 * As well as the opening number, "Maybe".
 * "Somebody, Somewhere" from The Most Happy Fella. The dialogue preceding it couldn't be anything other than a cue for an I Want Song:

Cleo: Wanting to soak my feet! Come on, dream girl. (She exits.)

Rosabella: (singing) Wanting to be wanted. Needing to be needed. That's what it is."


 * In Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Mrs. Lovett sings "By The Sea" about how she wants to move to the seaside and marry Sweeney Todd.
 * This example is a slight subversion, since the story isn't about Lovett's quest for a seaside retirement, and she never gets anywhere close to achieving this goal. More pertinent (if less traditional) is Sweeney's "My Friends" in which he lovingly addresses his razors and delights in being able to exact his revenge, which is joined in by Mrs. Lovett with her longing for Sweeney halfway through.
 * The movie takes "By The Sea" further into subversion with the visualization of her fantasy,
 * Johanna gets the "crushed by life" version in "Green Finch and Linnet Bird": having lived most of her life as the ward and effectively the prisoner of Judge Turpin, all she dares hope for is the ability to adjust to captivity: "If I cannot fly, let me sing!"
 * "Sal Tlay Ka Siti" from The Book of Mormon
 * "Santa Fe" from RENT (allegedly inspired by the song of the same name from Newsies) also counts, as the disillusioned New Yorkers fantasize about life in sunny Santa Fe.
 * As does, more traditionally, "One Song Glory", which is about Roger wanting to leave a mark on the world in the form of a beautiful, powerful piece of music.
 * "Great Big Stuff" from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (The Musical), although it's really more about the character's greed than anything.
 * "The Wizard and I" from Wicked - Elphaba wants to be accepted and praised in spite of her strange appearance (i.e. green skin).
 * The song also contains the first appearance of the "Unlimited" interlude, which forms one of the musical's several Dark Reprises at the end.
 * "Popular" is a subversion, as Galinda tries to convince Elphaba of what she should want rather than what she does want.
 * "Some People" for Rose and "If Momma Was Married" for June and Luise, both from Gypsy.
 * Rose's Turn is an inversion: it's more of an I Wanted song.
 * "The Spark of Creation" from Children of Eden, where Eve sings about how being made in God's image has given her a restless urge for creativity.
 * And later, "Lost in the Wilderness" which basically portrays Cain, sympathetically, as the world's first agnostic.
 * "Matchmaker, Matchmaker" and/or "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof, the former being more directly related to the conflict of the show.
 * Legally Blonde: The Musical's I Want Song is actually titled "What You Want".
 * "The Beauty Is" and "Il Mondo Era Vuoto" from The Light in the Piazza.
 * "Buenos Aires" from Evita.
 * "Buenos Aires" is more of a "Not I'm starting to get what I want" song than an "I want" song. A better example would be "Eva, Beware" which appears right before "Buenos Aires", in which she's whining that she wants her (current) lover to take her to the Big City with him.
 * "Good Morning Baltimore" and "I Can Hear The Bells" from Hairspray.
 * "The Movie In My Mind" from Miss Saigon. "The American Dream" could apply, too.
 * "Not For the Life of Me" from Thoroughly Modern Millie.
 * Later, "Gimme Gimme" and "Muquin".
 * "The Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha.
 * All of Tom Waits' musicals will do something with this.
 * Most of Frank's Wild Years, especially "Innocent When You Dream", except that whenever Frank tries to sing it, someone interrupts him. He doesn't get to sing the whole song until the end, at which point he is just as unfulfilled as he was at the beginning.
 * "Coney Island Baby" from Woyzeck, about how Woyzeck just wants to live happily with Marie.
 * "But He's Not Wilhelm" from The Black Rider, sung by Agathe about how she wants to marry Wilhelm. Unfortunately, the plotline kicks in.
 * The title song in Alice is a very creepy version of this, as it's sung by Lewis Caroll, who knows exactly what he wants.
 * "Wheels of a Dream" from Ragtime is part this, part Award Bait Song love duet.
 * Also, "Goodbye, My Love".
 * "With One Look" and "As If We Never Said Goodbye" from Sunset Boulevard.
 * "All That's Known" from Spring Awakening.
 * Melchior's closing refrain here -- "You watch me, just watch me, and one day all will know" -- is echoed in both "Bitch of Living" and, most notably, as the closing lines of "Those You've Known" as a Dark Reprise.
 * It could be argued that a good majority of the songs in Spring Awakening are "I Want" Songs- "Mama Who Bore Me" is "I want to be treated like an adult", "Touch Me" is "I want sex/physical intimacy", and "I Don't Do Sadness" is "I want to be free from my neuroses."
 * Each act in Into the Woods begins with "I Wish". The one in Act 2 is more of a Dark Reprise.
 * Cinderella sings in "A Very Nice Prince" that "What I want most of all... is to know what I want," and relays a similar sentiment in "On the Steps of the Palace". Indeed, one of her defining character traits is indecisiveness and not knowing if she wants the ball or the prince.
 * Assassins features a Deconstruction of this; the opening theme, "Everybody's Got the Right" is a song about how the characters in the play have the right to follow their dreams. Of course, said characters include the likes of John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, and John Hinckley, so it's not quite as inspiring as it might seem at first glance.
 * "Roxie" from Chicago. Sung by the character of the same name about her desire to be famous.
 * Another variation from Sondheim: in Company, the "I Want" song comes at the very end, since it takes the entire musical for Bobby to figure out just what, exactly, he does want from a relationship. The first-act closer "Marry Me A Little" might look like the "I Want" song, but the context makes it clear that the kind of no-strings relationship that song pleads for ("We'll build a coccoon/Of love and respect/You promise whatever you like/I'll never collect") isn't sustainable. The final song, "Being Alive", begins as a denunciation of marriage ("Someone to hold you too close/Someone to hurt you too deep") and ends as a plea for it ("Somebody, hold me too close!/Somebody, hurt me too deep!"). As the curtain closes, Bobby's finally ready to blow out the candles on his birthday cake and make a wish...
 * "96,000" from In the Heights is an interesting variation; the characters know that someone in the neighborhood has won the title amount in the lottery and will have the chance to improve their lives, even "get out of the barrio." They just don't know who.
 * In the Heights Has a couple. "It Won't Be Long Now" is sung by one of the Heroines and "When You're Home" is this in a duet.
 * "Mr. Right" from Love Life.
 * Keating! has "I Remember Kirribilli" and "It's Time" for Keating, and John Howard's Villain Song "Power".
 * "Ruler of the Land", where Keating sings about what he wants Australia to be like under his leadership, also fits.
 * Despite the name, "I Want More" from Lestat: The Musical, is actually Claudia's I Am Song. Her I Want Song proper would be "I'll Never Have That Chance".
 * "Far And Distant Places" from the Atlantis Musical.
 * A version where the person singing is neither the Villain nor the protagonist is found in Young Frankenstein The Musical in the song "Please Send Me Someone".
 * The Rocky Horror Picture Show has "Touch-a Touch-A Touch-a Touch Me", "Rose Tint My World", and "I Can Make You A Man". Not surprising in a musical about lust and desires.
 * The musical Camelot has an exceedingly ironic example of this trope in the song "The Simple Joys Of Maidenhood". Especially given the rest of the plot.
 * Barnum has "The Colors of My Life", a two-part number - part one is about the hero's big dreams, and part two is about his wife's Chairy homey ones; the key conflict in the show is between their wants. The Act One closer "Out There" has him deciding to travel with Swedish singer Jenny Lind's tour in part because he's fallen for her; in Act Two he returns to Chairy and tries to live the life she wanted him to, and it really doesn't work. "The Colors of My Life", now a duet, follows - and turns out to be the prelude to her death, making it a Dark Reprise.
 * "Class", sung by Gene from Stephen Sondheim's Saturday Night. A humorous example in that it is rife with examples of how Gene, unaware of himself, simply isn't capable of attaining the class to which he aspires.
 * "The Call" from Floyd Collins.
 * Leo and Lucille Frank, from Parade, each get one in "How Can I Call This Home" and "What Am I Waiting For?" respectively. Another example of the focus being not on a specific objective but rather a dissatisfaction and uneasiness with life as it is.
 * "I Hope I Get It" for the entire cast of A Chorus Line.
 * "Pacific Overture" has an I Want Song, "Please Hello", for all the countries trying to "open" Japan. The take turns with their demands (each in their own national style: the American in pseudo-Sousa, the Brit as a patter-song "modern major general" riff, etc). Then they start singing over each other as the demands escalate and it is dazzling "Don't touch the Coat!".
 * The Elton John musical Aida has "Enchantment Passing Through" for Aida and Radames, which gets a Dark Reprise in the second act.
 * Copacabana has "Just Arrived", which is all about Lola's desire to be a star in New York.
 * We Will Rock You has several that qualify, including "I Want to Break Free" (Galileo/Scaramouche), "I Want It All" (Meat and Britney) and even "Seven Seas of Rhye", to some extent, for Kashoggi.
 * "Someday" from The Wedding Singer, but sung by the female love interest, not the hero. Also, to a lesser extent (as it's sung by the female love interest's cousin), "Right In Front Of Your Eyes", and "Let Me Come Home" (sung by the female villain-of-sorts).
 * "Memory" is an unusual I Want Song from Cats because the singer isn't singing about the future. What Grizabella really wants is a chance to relive her life, which consisted of a misspent youth. Knowing that a wish for the past to change is ungrantable, she'll settle for understanding and acceptance.
 * "Let Me Walk Among You" from Bat Boy: The Musical, in which Bat Boy pleads the townspeople of Hope Falls to accept him and help him be human.
 * Once Upon a Mattress has "Happily Ever After" and "Opening for a Princess"; the first is about Winifred's desire for a fairytale ending and the second is about how the rest of the castle people want Dauntless to marry.
 * The French musical Roméo & Juliette has "Un Jour" (One Day).
 * The Musical Baby has "I Want It All".
 * "Oh, To Be A Movie Star" from Passionella, part of the musical The Apple Tree.
 * Stephen Sondheim fans might be more familiar with his version, "Truly Content".
 * "I Miss The Mountains" from Next to Normal *might* be considered an I Want song--though it's really about one thing that Diana Goodman wants at this one point in the show (to feel again without drugs pulling her into a bland unemotional state) rather than the one thing that she wants more than anything throughout the show.
 * Sweet Charity has several -- "There's Got To Be Something Better Than This" is a straightforward I Want Song, "Baby Dream Your Dream" is a bittersweet example, and "If My Friends Could See Me Now" can be considered an I Want as well.
 * "Much More" from The Fantasticks.
 * "(I'm Gonna Be) Somebody" from Celebration.
 * "Till I Hear You Sing" from Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, is this for the Phantom.
 * Both leads in The Music Man get their own: "The Sadder But Wiser Girl for Me" for Professor Hill and its Distaff Counterpart "My White Night" for Marian the Librarian. Ironically, they both end up falling in love with someone exactly opposite from the sort of person they each claim to want.
 * Several from How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying:
 * The opening number: "How To..." is exposition as well as Finch's I Want Song. Reprised in Act 2 near the end for the secretaries.
 * "Happy To Keep His Dinner Warm" is Rosemary's.
 * "Rosemary" becomes one for the two of them - Finch has finally figured out that he loves Rosemary, and his proposal causes her to reciprocate.
 * "Paris Original" appears to be one of these at first, as Rosemary's crooning about her dress that'll knock Finch for a loop and make him swoon over her, but Hilarity Ensues with an example of Dresses the Same - a beautiful subversion beginning halfway through the song.
 * Finally, "Love From A Heart Of Gold" turns itself into one for Biggley and Hedy.
 * The stage musical Titanic (nothing to do with this or this except the big ship) has a few. The most memorable is probably "Lady's Maid", in which third-class passengers declare the careers they wish to pursue after immigrating to America, a "better place for me and you" where "the streets are paved with gold".
 * "That's A Very Interesting Question/I'd Like To Be A Rose" from the rock musical Two Gentlemen of Verona.
 * Vanities has "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing", "An Organized Life", and "Fly Into The Future".
 * "I Want To Be Rich" from Stop The World, I Want To Get Off.
 * Starlight Express has several, including portions of "Call Me Rusty", and of course "Starlight Express".

Video Games
"I used to want you dead, but
 * Portal 2's Want You Gone

now I only Want You Gone."

Web Original

 * "Freeze Ray" from Dr. Horribles Sing Along Blog. "A Man's Gotta Do" was turning into one as well - before Captain Hammer hijacked it in the middle of the first verse and turns it into an I Am Song.
 * "Everything You Ever" is a dark subversion as it as about Billy getting everything he wanted
 * Star Wars The Musical has an amazing I Want Song in Luke Skywalker's "One Season More".
 * A Very Potter Musical possibly has one as it's opening song "Goin' Back to Hogwarts" has Harry and several other characters excitedly singing about returning to school. Malfoy's verse of the song is definitely this trope as he sings about all the things he wants. Later in the show Malfoy attempts to sing an I Want Song about his dream school Pigfarts but Snape interrupts him.
 * In A Very Potter Sequel, Hermione has "The Coolest Girl". She's tired of being the object of derision and scorn. She wants people to treat her like a person, and realize that she's a lot cooler than they think she is.

Western Animation
"Buford: I WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNT."
 * "Fame and Fortune" (which replaced "We're a Couple of Misfits" from 1965 to 1997) and the first twenty-five seconds of "The Island of Misfit Toys" from Rankin Bass' adaption of the song Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
 * Strawberry Shortcake has a few of these. In the 2003 episodes alone:
 * "If I Glittered'' from the Cinderella Fable Remake episode.
 * "Scaredy Little Me".
 * "Why Can't I".
 * "Jammin'".
 * "I'm Not Too Little".
 * "Man Oh Man Oh Manners".
 * The Fairly Odd Parents got one sung by Norm called 'Gimmie the Wand' talking about how he wants to be a fairy instead of a Genie. The duet at the end definitely qualifies as a Crowning Music of Awesome song.
 * Note that this also doubles as a Villain Song, since Norm is the bad guy. The second half is a duet with Cosmo, playing this a bit straighter.
 * The third season of Total Drama Island has the song "Before We Die". Some of the characters sing about what they want to do if they don't die at the end of the song, which they were led to believe they were going to. "I Wanna Be Famous" is another song that speaks of...a desire to be well-known.
 * Sparky in Spark Plug Entertainment's A Cars Life Sparkys Big Adventure attempts to sing one, but is stopped by his dad as he exclaims "This isn't a musical!".
 * Hilarious subversion in Phineas and Ferb episode "The Wizard of Odd".

"We wanna sit on Scorsese's head,
 * Since Phineas and Ferb has songs about Once an Episode, there are naturally other examples. For example, the same special also gives us "I Want To Be Cool".
 * Groundskeeper Willie gets a parody of one in The Simpsons episode "My Fair Laddy", called "Wouldn't It Be Adequate?"
 * In the Animaniacs short "West Side Pigeons", the sparrows get a parody of "America" in West Side Story:

But we can't sit on Scorsese's head,

Goodfeathers sit on Scorsese's head,

We wanna sit on Scorsese's head!"

"I wanna kick your ass until your ass falls off/
 * Rita has had a few of these, mostly about wanting a home.
 * At the Gala from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic "The Best Night Ever" is a variation, having each of the characters singing about what they hope they will get out of their night at the gala.
 * Similarly, Find a Pet from "May the Best Pet Win!" establishes Rainbow Dash's qualities she wants in a pet.
 * The Brak Show episode "The War Next Door" featured Zorak getting a better voice and becoming a successful musician. All his songs are about his intense hatred for the audience, including "I Want To Kick Your Ass".

I wanna kick your head and kick your ass again/

Why? I don't think it's learned its lesson/

Open the door, sucker. It's Zorak/

Here to kick your ass."