A Spoonful of Sugar - From "Mary Poppins" / Soundtrack Version

This is arguably the most endearing song from the Walt Disney fantasy musical Mary Poppins. Its message "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down", is related by the mysterious nanny (played by Julie Andrews) to her new charges. The song was co-written by the famous Sherman Brothers, whose classics include "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "It's A Small World."

The Sherman brothers were stuck trying to coming up with a catchy title and chorus for this song. "An Apple a Day" and "A Stitch in Time" was amongst the suggestions that were later rejected. The pair struggled to come up with something snappy for a fortnight until Robert Sherman's then-8-year-old son came home from school. He recalled: "I said, 'How was school?' He said, 'Great. We got the (polio) vaccine today.' I said, 'Oh, did it hurt?' He said, 'No, they just stuck medicine on a lump of sugar.' I went, 'Ohhhh!' That was it!"

Julie Andrews provided the animatronic bird's whistling.