Varèse Sarabande will release the Po - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally on January 13, 2017. The album features the original music composed by Burt Bacharach, winner of three Academy Awards® and seven Grammy® Awards. The album features the original song "Dancing With Your Shadow", composed by Bacharach, with lyrics by Billy Mann, and performed by Sheryl Crow.
Po follows the story of a recently widowed father struggling to raise his 10-year-old autistic son. The family drama stars Christopher Gorham, Julian Feder as Po, and Kaitlin Doubleday. The film is completely authentic with Gorham, Asher and the writers, Colin Goldman and Steve C. Roberts, all having children with autism.
The subject of the film resonated with Bacharach, who had a daughter who suffered from Asperger's Syndrome and eventually took her own life. Originally he was approached to license a song to the film, but "The more I looked at the film, the more I kept getting drawn into it I started to think, maybe I'd like to score it for you," said Bacharach.
The score is mostly piano based, performed by Bacharach. "The music is tender and warm, melodic and unmistakably Bacharach," as described by Jon Burlingame of Variety.
For the original song "Dancing With Your Shadow," Bacharach reached out to lyricist Billy Mann, who is also raising an autistic child. "Burt gave me this magnificent melody," says Mann. "I had to work within that melody and at the same time try to narrow down lyrically what he was feeling, what I was feeling, and most of all what resonated with the film." He then brought in Sheryl Crow to lend her vocals.