How Far Ill Go Lyrics

Getting the Words Right for "How Far I'll Go"

If you're looking for the How Far Ill Go Lyrics, you want the words from the song that Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote for Disney's Moana. The track came out in 2016 and is sung by Auli'i Cravalho as Moana herself during one of the movie's key character-moment scenes. It won a Golden Globe nomination and landed on a bunch of year-end lists, mostly because the melody sits somewhere between Broadway ballad and ocean folk tune. The song opens with Moana standing on the shore, telling her father and the village that something is pulling her toward the water. The verses establish her internal conflict before the chorus breaks into the wider, more defiant question that gives the song its title.

How Far Ill Go Lyrics

I've been out here every day
Trying to find where I belong
I see the line where the sky meets the sea
But it calls me
And no one knows how far it goes
If the wind in my sail on the sea is behind me
I'll see where the night takes me
Until I know where I'm meant to be I will point my bow at the fading stars
Watch the night turn to day
And we'll never know where we're going
How far I'll go Here on the deck I've done the math
Counted every wave, every star, every fish
I could never get past this horizon
That hides some unknown unknowns
I've been listening for clues in the wind
But all I ever hear is silence
I can hear the call though it might not make sense
It's calling me somewhere I've never been
Maybe beyond the reef

I'll sail beyond the reef
Down to where the wind feels the same
Where I've never been
And I'll follow that path
Even if it leads me nowhere at all
How far I'll go The midnight sun pulls me forward
And I know I have to go
I'll sail beyond the reef
Down to where the wind feels the same
Where I've never been
And I'll follow that path
Even if it leads me nowhere at all
How far I'll go The version most people hear is the film mix. The pop single released afterward dropped some lines and tightened the structure slightly, so if you're cross-referencing between sources you'll notice small differences in the bridge section.

I ran into a practical issue once when I was transcribing this for a karaoke setup. The film version has a spoken-word style delivery in the second verse that sits right at the edge of being sung. The timing is loose, almost conversational, which makes it a pain to map onto a standard lyric display that expects steady phrasing. What I ended up doing was treating that section as a separate timing track and layering it on top rather than forcing it into the same grid as the sung parts. It took about twenty minutes longer than a normal sync job but the result looked clean enough to pass for professional. Most people won't notice the difference unless they're listening closely. The bridge is the part that trips people up if they try to memorize this cold. Lines like "I could never get past this horizon / That hides some unknown unknowns" play with rhythm in a way that doesn't follow a predictable meter. The phrase "unknown unknowns" itself is a deliberate stumble — Miranda is using a rhetorical device where the repetition mirrors Moana's uncertainty. Beginners often try to smooth that out and lose the intention in the process. Keep it jagged on purpose. Another thing nobody mentions: the key changes. The final chorus lifts a half step from the original key, which is standard musical theater practice but catches a lot of vocalists off guard if they haven't marked their sheets. I'd recommend putting a clear marker right above the "Midnight sun" section so you're not scrambling to find your place mid-song. A simple "" or a handwritten note like "up one" works fine. Don't overthink the annotation, just make sure it's visible when you're singing.

There are a number of official lyric pages and the soundtrack liner notes that have the complete text. The Disney website publishes the lyrics under license, and the Moana: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack booklet has them printed inside. If you're looking for a single source to trust, the soundtrack credits are the most authoritative since Miranda himself oversaw the final wording. The song is available on every major streaming platform as part of the Moana soundtrack album. Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music — they all carry it. If you want the acoustic demo version that Miranda recorded before the film was finalized, that shows up on the Platinum Edition release and it sounds noticeably rougher around the edges. The melody is the same but the arrangement is sparser, and you can hear some lyrical variations that made it into the final cut and others that didn't. One more practical note for anyone using this for performance purposes. The song sits in a range that works for both altos and tenors without transposition, but the belt in the final chorus can strain if you don't have solid breath support. I've seen people cut the last repeat entirely live because they were running out of air before hitting the high notes. Not ideal but honestly pretty common. If you're performing this and you're not a trained singer, consider dropping the key by a semitone and sacrificing the original intensity for stability.