Original subtitles

[MUSIC - "WHAT'S THIS?"]

"Nightmare Before Christmas--" that was a unique moment for me

in my life that I've never had anything quite like it since,

because I'd always, as a songwriter, with Oingo Boingo,

and with the Mystic Knights before that,

I always kind of struggled getting a song together.

And usually, there's a process, like what am I singing about?

And I have a tune I like, but I don't know what I'm--

what's bothering me right now, because frequently,

I sung about things that bothered me.

I just don't want to write things just to be obnoxious,

like when I started out, because that

was enough in the beginning.

Now, I'm looking for things that I'm thinking about.

It was hard.

And I start "Nightmare Before Christmas" with Tim,

and so this was unique because it's the first time in my life

I'd written for a character that wasn't me,

the character I felt a close kinship with.

And as I wrote more and more for Jack Skellington,

he became more of my alter ego that I felt was part of me,

but that developed in the course of writing 10 songs.

It was unique because there was no script.

Tim and I did not know how to begin a musical.

There was no guidebook or manual to look up

on how to begin a musical animation that

doesn't have a script.

He had a story.

He had an outline.

And that's what, basically, he got the job from.

I just knew what I didn't want it to be.

I didn't want it to be a Broadway musical

because, in that period, I felt like Broadway

had become an extension of adult contemporary music.

And so I wanted to write something musically that

was contemporary but retro, meaning the songs were modern,

but they also referred back to things that were retro.

In the sense, I was trying to put together

different eras of song writing and trying

to find a way to make it sound like this

could come from any era.

So my great driving influences were--

obviously, Kurt Weill was the biggest influence

because I loved "Threepenny Opera."

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

There was also Gilbert and Sullivan.

I loved Gilbert and Sullivan.

I think there's just nothing better from the 19th Century.

These are what I took into the songs.

We don't have a script, but Henry

is ready to start animating.

We have to start coming up with something.

We just-- we're just behind.

Let's just start with the tunes.

OK, take out the drawings, and I would say, just tell me

what happens here.

And he goes-- he starts telling me the story,

and I would start hearing the tune.

And he would have, sometimes, little phrases, bits of lyrics

that he had done.

It's like, oh, that's good, that's good,

and I would shut them down.

And I'd say, OK, that's it.

Don't tell me anymore.

Get out there, and I run back to my studio.

And we did this 10 times, and each song only

took about three days to write.

I'd call him back twice a week to hear a new song.

And I'd play him the one that I just wrote,

and he was like, oh, yeah, OK, yeah, that's good.

Well, what happens next?

Now, Jack wanders into the forest,

and he's going to come across these doors.

And he gets pulled down, and it's Christmasland,

and he's never seen it.

Everything is fresh.

Everything is new.

And it's like, yes, what's this?

I got it.

I got it.

I got it.

Get out of here.

Get out of here.

And he's-- OK, I'm going.

I'm going.

Go back.

Write "What's This?"

Lay down all the vocals.

I was laying down all the vocals for everything as I went.

Comes back three days later, and he

hears, (SINGING) what's this?

What's this?

There's color everywhere.

What's this?

There's white things in the air.

[MUSIC - "WHAT'S THIS?"]

(SINGING) What's this?

I can't believe my eyes.

I must be dreaming.

Wake up, Jack.

This isn't fair!

What's this?

And he's going, yeah, that's good.

Now, what happens?

And we just went the whole way like that.

And at points, it was stuff that wasn't

going to be in song at all.

But it's like, Jack calls a town meeting,

and he's bringing everybody, and he's

going to explain what they don't understand.

He's trying to explain the spirit of Christmasland

to Halloween Land.

And it wasn't a song.

It was never intended to be a song.

But he's telling me the story, and I go,

this is a thing called a present.

The whole thing starts with a box.

A box?

Is it filled with a pox?

(IN A SILLY VOICE) A pox, how delightful, a pox.

(SPEAKING NORMALLY) No, no, no, you don't understand.

A box with bright colored paper, (SINGING) and the whole thing's

topped with a bow.

(SPEAKING NORMALLY) And now, it's a song.

(SINGING) But why?

(SINGING) How ugly.

(SINGING) What's in it?

What's in it?

It's the point of the thing not to know.

It's a bat!

Will it bend?

It's a rat!

Will it break?

Perhaps it's the head that I found in the lake.

And there we went, and then I started really having fun.

(SINGING) Everyone, please, now, not so fast.

(SPEAKING NORMALLY) Now, that little phrase is--

I don't know.

It's right out of--

I don't know if it's out of Cole Porter

or it's out of something from Gilbert and Sullivan

or something in between.

But every time I got to those moments,

I was really having fun.

(SINGING) Ah dah-dah bum bum bum bum bum.

(SPEAKING NORMALLY) It's like, I never

get to do this unless it's really silly,

but here, I'm putting it into song.

And I love these archaic little moments, musical moments,

that I could grab and make a hodgepodge, kind of a collage,

of styles from different things.

So within one song, I might be going

from Kurt Weill to Cole Porter to Gilbert and Sullivan

and then back to Kurt Weill again.

Who knows?

But it was that easy.

In that month, there was actually,

by the time we finished, more than half the story,

half the movie, was there.

Half the movie was done in song.

And it's like, OK, what the hell?

And Disney, fortunately, let us be.

They didn't have any involvement in the process.

Nobody came in.

Nobody asked to hear anything.

They were just like, OK, you know what?

We're at the point now where let's let Tim and Danny go

and do their thing.

Let them go play, and play we did.

And since we had no one to answer to,

this is where, of course, we had the most fun working together,

because it really was like that most of the time.

It was only "Batman" that there was producers and others

and the studio involved, but most of the time,

we were left on our own.

Nobody was paying attention to what we were

doing on "Edward Scissorhands."

Nobody cared.

It was a low budget movie, and just go do your thing.

But to do a musical at Disney--

I didn't realize until much later.

I go, how could they have allowed that?

That's not in their mindset to just let two people go run off

and not say, so, gentlemen, let us listen to what you're doing.

They didn't.

Now, was that our good fortune, or was that their wisdom

or a combination of the two?

Whatever it is, I'm really grateful for that now,

because I think that's a really rare thing for--

just let a couple artists just go and do their thing.

And I realized-- here I am, for the first time

ever, writing through another voice.

And because it's another voice, I

didn't have to think about what he's thinking about.

I knew what he was thinking about.

Tim was telling me what he's thinking about.

He was showing me pictures, and it was right there.

And I go, I love this.

There's no stressing over, what is the character--

what am I wanting to say?

Of course, I know what I want to say.

I want to say, (SINGING) what have I done?

What have I done?

How could I be so blind?

(SPEAKING NORMALLY) Because he's just crashed in the graveyard

because he's screwed up Christmas.

There's not any stress over what it's about.

It's-- it's just right there.

It's like, he's singing about the story.

And so "Nightmare Before Christmas" was a rare thing.

The actual creation of the songs that

ended up being such a big portion of the film--

it just was a rare moment of synchronicity.

Tim and I were in complete synchronicity, and it's like,

let's just do our thing and have fun.