Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (soundtrack)

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Directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon zeroed in on songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, known for their work on La La Land (2016) and The Greatest Showman (2017), understanding the importance of the project as a musical.^[3][4] During production, Pasek and Paul joined the film as executive producers, saying that the premise of a singing crocodile made the film "exciting". With Shawn Mendes voicing Lyle, the duo "blended musical theater with contemporary pop, aiming to create something with his voice".^[5] The duo then brought in Ari Afsar, Emily Gardner Xu Hall, Mark Sonnenblick, and Joriah Kwamé to write songs for the album. The writers and musicians had to collaborate remotely using Google Docs and Zoom, due to COVID-19 pandemic.^[5][6] Will Speck and Josh Gordon had worked on mostly diegetic music, with Mendes performing the majority of the tracks as a singing crocodile.^[5]

The first track written for the film, was "Take a Look at us Now" performed by Javier Bardem as Hector, a showman and magician, which was a "charming and energetic anthem". Pasek wanted an energetic number, which also reflects the relationship between Lyle, Hector, and Josh (Winslow Fegley), with Kwamé suggesting the hook line, gave the song "the fire element which needed".^[5] The second song "Rip Up the Recipe" is an upbeat number performed by Constance Wu who plays Mrs. Primm, Josh's mother. While the song originally had lyrics reflecting her passion for cooking, in the film, Primm was revealed to be a cookbook author, hence they accommodated the lyrics to suit her character.^[5] Another ballad song "Carried Away", according to Pasek and Paul, "encapsulates the movie's central theme of belonging", as in a sequence, Lyle is in a Zoo, "and the lyrics reflect his desire to live free". Pasek says "It's this character trying not to give in to sadness instead of indulging in a feeling".^[5]

The executive producer Ian Eisendrath said "Since Lyle can only communicate through singing, Shawn's delivery of every note, rhythm, and lyric needed to function on two levels – letting us into Lyle's interior life and deepening and furthering his character and story." Kwamé also opined that Mendes' expressions at the end of his phrases "works well for musical theater".^[5] Mendes felt that writing music for a film was a challenging, as well as an inspiring process, but also said "The hardest part though is that when you are singing for a film instead of your own album, you really have to ace the nuances of the emotion behind every lyric and every note and match it to how the character will be portraying it on screen. That was a learning experience."^[7] He also felt "really comfortable" on voicing the titular crocodile as it sings throughout the film.^[7]

On September 21, 2022, Shawn Mendes revealed the track list of the original soundtrack, which features 15 tracks. The incorporated songs of the film include Elton John's "Crocodile Rock", Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke", Pete Rodriguez's "I Like It Like That", while also including original tracks written by Pasek, Paul, Shawn Mendes and an array of writers.^[6] An original song written and performed by Mendes,^[8] titled "Heartbeat" was released as the album's promotional single on September 23, 2022.^[9][10] The soundtrack was released on September 30, by Island Records.^[2]

In June 2022, Matthew Margeson was reported to score the film.^[14] The score album was released by Madison Gate Records on October 7.^[15]