Villainous Advice Song

"He lied to us through song! I hate it when people do that."

—Homer Simpson, The Simpsons

A Character or most likely a Bad Samaritan tricks other characters into helping them out through song. A subtrope of a Villain Song giving "advice" to The Hero only meant to benefit the villain or to tell how unstoppable the villain has become.

Compare and Contrast Pep-Talk Song, where characters are sung to and given encouragement; the means of a Pep-Talk Song is to benefit the listener, while the Villainous Advice Song is meant to benefit the singer.

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Examples:

Film - Animated

• In Cats Don't Dance, Darla gives advice to Danny in "Big and Loud" on how he should go about performing his song for the studio exec. In reality, she's setting Danny up to ruin a press conference, which will get him and the other animals fired.
• Disney Animated Canon
  • Disney's Peter Pan. Captain Hook and his pirate crew try to convince the Lost Boys, Wendy, John and Michael to join up with them in the song "The Elegant Captain Hook". The "helpful" and kinda forceful advice that they offer is that if they join they will both get a free tattoo andddd... won't walk the plank. So no pressure at all. Unsurprisingly the boys all consider their predicament and make their choice quite quickly, apart from Wendy who is chosen to demonstrate the folly of declining.
  • In The Little Mermaid (1989), "Poor Unfortunate Souls" is Ursula's song to convince Ariel to sign a binding contract. In it, she paints herself as regretting her past misdeeds and wanting to help people, but her Stage Whispers to Flotsam and Jetsam betray this facade to the audience if they weren't already drowning in her sarcasm. On the TV series, there's Ursula's song "You wouldn't want to Mess with me".
  • In Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Frollo sings "In Here" to Quasimodo. After Frollo leaves, Quasimodo's "I Want" Song, "Out There", closely follows.
  • In The Princess and the Frog, Naveen is tricked by Dr. Facilier during "Friends On The Other Side".
  • Tangled has Mother Gothel advising Rapunzel against leaving the tower because of all the dangers in the outside world in "Mother Knows Best".

• My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) has the song "Open up your eyes", in which Tempest advises Twilight against depending on other people or hoping for friendship and that she is better off trying to survive alone.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas has Oogie Boogie "advising" Santa Claus to be afraid in "Oogie Boogie's Song" which isn't really much good given that he is at his mercy already and fear won't help him in any way apart from apparently making him tastier.

Film - Live-Action

• "Which Side are You On?" from Anna and the Apocalypse, a duet sung by the main villain Mr. Savage and Anna's father, Tony. Here, Mr. Savage attempts to convince the survivors locked inside the school that they must protect themselves instead of helping any survivors outside.
• "Professional Pirate" in Muppet Treasure Island is Silver trying to convince Jim to help by explaining pirates are just misunderstood.
• In Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Adam is treated as a misguided hero, rather than a villain. However, "The Sobbin' Women" holds a special place in the annals of bad musical advice.

Music

• Eminem, fitting his Anti-Role Model persona, has numerous songs like this.
  • "Guilty Conscience" by Eminem ft. Dr. Dre has Slim Shady as the voice of various character's evil impulses, while Dre attempts to talk them out of it.
  • "Role Model" is a song of Slim Shady describing all the stupid things he does and telling his child audience to copy him - "Do exactly what the song says! Smoke weed, take pills, drop out of school, kill people."
  • In "Bad Influence", he urges his teenage fans to commit suicide. "Go ahead, get mad and do it! Just pull the plug!"
  • In "Who Knew?", "Take drugs, rape sluts, make fun of gay clubs, men who wear make-up..."
  • Eminem also has a couple of songs where he tries to give his fans good advice. In "Square Dance", he urges them to avoid getting drafted, and "Mosh" attempts to rally them into revolution.

Theatre

• Assassins has "Everybody's Got the Right", a song which is encouraging the characters to follow their dreams...except their dreams all involve killing presidents.
• "Forbidden Fruit" from The Apple Tree has a snake advising Eve to eat a Tempting Apple from the Garden of Eden to impress Adam with the newfound knowledge it will supposedly give her.
  Snake: Listen closely, let me fill you in
  about the rich, ripe, round, red
  rosy apples they call 'forbidden fruit'.
  What I'm about to say is confidential
  so promise you'll be mute!
  Because if every creature
  in the Garden knows
  they'll come 'round like
  hungry buffaloes
  and in no time
  there'll be none of those
  precious apples left for you and me!
• In The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini, there is Don Basilio's bravura aria "La calunnia è un venticello", in which he advises Doctor Bartolo to frustrate Count Almaviva's designs on Rosina by spreading slanderous rumours about him.
• In "Chant (Reprise)" from Hadestown Hades gives Orpheus advice as to how to make a woman stay with you, advising such things as "hang a chain around her throat", or "shackle her from wrist to wrist".
  Hades: Take it from a man no longer young
  If you want to hold a woman, son
  Hang a chain around her throat
  Made of many carat gold
  Shackle her from wrist to wrist
  With sterling silver bracelets
  Fill her pockets full of stones
  Precious ones, diamonds
  Bind her with a golden band
  Take it from an old man
• The Heathers in Heathers advise Veronica to drop her dorky best friend Martha if she wants to join their clique in the song "Candy Store".
  Heather Chandler: Are we gonna have a problem?
  You got a bone to pick?
  You've come so far,
  why now are you pulling on my dick?
  I'd normally slap your face off,
  and everyone here could watch.
  But I'm feeling nice,
  here's some advice,
  listen up bee-yatch!
• "What Are We Waiting For?" by the Gunnery Officer in the musical adaptation of Only You Can Save Mankind, as he tries to persuade his fellow ScreeWee to side with him against the Captain's wish for peace.
• Matilda has two: "The Hammer", in which Miss Trunchbull explains the need for strict discipline in getting ahead, whilst Mrs Wormwood has "Loud" as she tells Miss Honey life is less about what you say and more about how...well... loud you say it.

Western Animation

• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: The Musical Episode has a meteor teaching Billy how he should go about retrieving brains in parts of the song.
• Steven Universe: Yellow Diamond in the episode "That Will Be All" advises Blue Diamond to forget about/bottle up her feelings of grief for Pink Diamond during the song "What's the Use of Feeling (Blue)?".
• VeggieTales: In the episode "Rack, Shack and Benny", the villain sings "The Bunny Song" to the protagonists, about the joys of eating too much candy. The producers got in trouble with parents for making the song too catchy, because kids in the audience wouldn't stop singing it.