Song Exploder - Danny Elfman - What’s This? (from “The Nightmare Before Christmas”)

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas came out in 1993. It’s a stop-motion animated musical, with music by legendary composer Danny Elfman. He’s won Emmys, a Grammy, and been nominated for four Oscars. His work includes the music for Tim Burton’s Batman films, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, Good Will Hunting, and the theme to The Simpsons. From 1979 to 1995, he was the singer and songwriter in the band Oingo Boingo.  The Nightmare Before Christmas takes place in a world where different holidays all have their own realm. And the story is about Jack Skellington, the leader of Halloweentown, a place where it’s always Halloween, and Halloween is all they know, and Jack has grown a little tired of it. But then, Jack discovers a portal to Christmastown, with snow and Santa and all things Christmas inhabiting it. He's never seen anything like it, and the discovery changes everything. The song "What’s This?" takes place in that moment of discovery. In this episode, Danny Elfman tells the story of how it all came together, and how writing and singing this song for Jack Skellington ended up profoundly connecting to his own life. For more, visit songexploder.net/danny-elfman.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas came out in 1993. It's a stop-motion animated musical with music by legendary composer Danny Elfman. He's won Emmys, a Grammy, and he's been nominated for four Oscars. From 1979 to 1995, he was also the singer and songwriter in the band Oingo Boingo. The Nightmare Before Christmas takes place in a award. world where different holidays all have their own realm. And the story is about Jack Skelington,

the leader of Halloween Town, a place where it's always Halloween, and Halloween is all they know, and Jack has grown a little tired of it. But then Jack discovers a portal to Christmas town, with snow and Santa and all things Christmas inhabiting it. The song, What's This, takes place in that moment of discovery. In this episode, Danny Elfman tells the story of how it all came together, and how writing and singing this song for Jack Skelington ended up profoundly connecting to his own life. The sights, the sounds, they're everywhere and all around. I've never felt so good before.

The empty place inside of me is filling up. I simply cannot get enough. I want it, oh, I want it, oh, I want it. For my own, I've got to know that you know it is this place that I am found. What is this? My name's Danny Elfman. Tim Burton just called me one day, and he said, Disney came across this story idea I had years and years and years ago when I was working there and it never got made and it got stashed away.

And somebody found it and said, oh, hey, look, we've got this Tim Burton thing. By the time Tim called me about nightmare before Christmas, we'd already done five movies together. We'd done the two Batman movies. We did Pee We did Pee We's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Edward Cisorhands. So we already knew each other fairly well. He would present me with these universes that he was creating. And they all just seemed completely normal to me. You know, we kind of came from similar backgrounds.

I grew up on monsters and science fiction fantasy as Tim did in the same era. So his world didn't ever seem that weird to me. And I guess that's why it worked out. So it's not like I'd ever go, oh my God, this is weird. am I going to do? This is like, what? I don't get it. For me, it was just like, yeah, I totally get it. So Tim came over the house and it was really as simple as this. He sat down and he pulled out these wonderful drawings that he did. And as soon as I saw what Jack looked like, said, oh yeah, right, this makes perfect sense to me. Let's just do it. And then he would start telling me the story, the way, the way, the

we did the whole musical was, I would say, just tell me the story as if you were telling it to, like, you know, some nephew or niece around the fire, you know, at night. And just tell me a little bit at a time. And he said, okay, Jack wanders into the forest and there's three doors. And he's mystified, and I'm picturing this. And he said, he's going to open the door. And he gets sucked in when he pops out. He's in this snowy world. There's snowflakes falling. And he's seeing things he's never seen before. Everything's new to him. And I would kind of write down little notes. And I'd say, okay, I got it, I got it. Go, go, go. And I would kind of shoe him out the door. The first things we hear are strings in Chaleste. And since I'm doing kind of a classic

arrangement here, harp seemed like a natural. And it's Jack arriving in Christmas town and sing it for the first time. So before the song starts, it's really score. I often write for Chalest. and I often write for voices, and I think it probably just goes back to Chikovsky, the use of Chaleste in Chikovsky's ballets. So I'd talk with Tim. He'd give me some ideas.

I'd grab a stennopad, and I'd start writing down lyrics. And as I'm writing down lyrics, I'm hearing a cadence. And I'm going, okay, I'm starting to feel this as a, you know, kind of a quick tempo. He's all excited. So I would just start with just going, At that time, I didn't even have a studio. I was living at my girlfriend's house in Burbank, and I set up a makeshift studio in her garage.

I'd have like four or five or six samplers, and one would be loaded up with string samples, one with woodwind samples, brass samples, percussion samples. Now, that many years ago, the orchestral demos were pretty cheesy sounding. So we got our French horns, played their little fanfinding. fair and again that's chikovsky-esque and now it's score and it's just kind of creating an energetic vibe for all the things jack is saying i really wanted it to sound timeless but not self-consciously timeless like i'm not trying to recreate an old style that somebody would go oh that's an old style of such and such but to feel like it could be any time or place i mean the only thing consciously i thought about a

little bit when I was doing What's This was Gilbert and Sullivan. I am the very muddled of a modern big of general. I can do the animal and mineral. That very kind of a tongue twister type of the thing. So I thought, oh, it would be fun if Jack was, it was like, what's this? What's this? There's color everywhere.

What's this? There's white things in the air. What's this? And it's like, okay, I'm getting the cadence of it. And I'm blocking it out with some basic chords. And by the end of a couple of days, days, I'd have a demo. Tim would come by and he'd listen and you go, oh yeah, okay, cool. What's this? What's this? There's white things in the air. What's this? I can't believe my eyes.

I must be dreaming wake of Jack. This isn't fair. What's this? So I did my vocals to the demo and those were just really funky because, you know, I was just using a radio shack microphone in my garage when I first laid them down. And then what I did is I took all the instrumental tracks and we went into a studio. It was just Tim and I late at night and I got in front of a real microphone and did all of Jack's vocals and all the other vocals. And we recorded all the songs for the whole movie in one night. What's this? What's this? There's color everywhere. What's this? There's white things in the air. What's this? I can't believe my eyes. I must be dreaming. Wake up Jack, this isn't fair. What's this? Jack's voice is kind of theatrical. It's more theatrical than

voice is going to be if I'm just singing one of my own songs. His voice like dips down into this part and then back up again. There's a little bit of talk singing. What's this? What's this? There's something very wrong. What's this? There's people singing songs. What's this? The streets are lined with little creatures laughing. Everybody seems so happy. Have I possibly gone Daffy? What is this? By the time I did those demos, I hadn't written them for myself, but I had in the process of writing those 10 songs became so attached to Jack that I didn't know how to bring it up. Afterwards, I was kind of hemming and hauling about it and I was going, Tim, about Jack.

And he goes, yeah, don't worry. You'll sing Jack. I was like, sure. Because if not, if he said, no, no, no, we have to hire a professional singer. I would have gone, okay, all right. but all kinds of mysterious accidents would have happened. And they'd finally come back to me and go, Danny, I mean, you've just had the most incredible bad luck off.

These three singers all got killed in the most mysterious ways. Would you mind doing it? And I'd go, well, if you really want, I suppose I could. Not a problem. The demo sounds cheesy, but all this is going to get replaced with the orchestra. It's going to sound wonderful. But there's a lot of detail that goes between my finished demo and getting it on paper. When I got Peewe's Big Adventure, I'd never done a score before.

And I was like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I need a orchestrator to work with me. And I didn't know any orchestrator. So I turned to Steve, my guitarist, in the band, doingo, boingo. And I go, have you ever orchestrated? He goes, I took a class at UCLA. I go, that's good enough. So it was Tim Burton's first feature, my first time composing an orchestral film score.

And my guitarist, first time being the orchestrator. He's still working with me now, by the way. So we've done, I think, 105 films together. But what I learned working with Steve is that he doesn't reinterpret the music. He just gets it to express itself as best it could be on paper for the orchestra to play. So if I have a bunch of woodwinds going like that, you know, it's like he'll take the time to write down. Okay, it's four. It's actually three different instruments.

And they actually have da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. The orchestra is amazing. There's nothing I can write that the orchestra can't play. It blows my mind even after 37 years. I write some really big, long pieces for films. And the first rehearsal that they do, never having seen it before, is already insanely good. And they're sight reading, because they don't take this music home and study it. They just walk in there and play it.

I really felt a strong. kinship to the character of Jack because I was at a place right at that point in my life with my band Doingo Boingo where really starting around 1990 I wanted to leave the band and every year I kept saying you know I think this is our last year I think this is our last year and they were like oh you know it can't happen can't happen and I felt really bad and so that feeling of guilt really kept me going for at least another five years which I don't regret, but I felt for Jack, who's this character that was really the king of his own world, but wanted out. You wanted something else. Because that's exactly how I felt at that moment. When you're a songwriter, singer in a band, you know, it's your universe. You've created that universe and you're kind of the center of that universe. And that's exactly what Jack was in Halloween land. And like Jack, I was looking for a door. I was really looking for a door to take me into another world.

The monsters are all missing and the nightmares can't be found. And in their place there seems to be good feeling all around. Instead of screams, I swear I can hear music in the air. The smell of cakes and pies are absolutely... I poured a lot of myself into Nightmare before Christmas. And when it came out, it was really, really misunderstood. Nobody got it. And I was really kind of heartbroken.

It wasn't a flop, but it was far. from a hit. I mean, I had to do like a hundred short interviews and every one of them asked the same thing. So this is too scary for kids, right? I go, no, it's not too scary for kids. It was just this thing that was the perception of it. It's not for kids. Kids hate it. But my daughter, Molly, she was around 10 because I remember she listened to all the songs as I was writing them. And so when people kept saying, oh, kids are going to hate these, I said, no, my 10-year-old daughters heard them all. and really loves them. And it was one of these incredibly lucky things of a movie that took on a life after it came out, which is so rare. I think if I was going to have any one piece that gets to have a second life on its own,

what's it going to be? And I would say, nightmare before Christmas, because every other film I'd done, I'd only worked on it for three months. And here I'd worked on this film for close to two years. And so I felt really, really lucky. when years afterwards I saw that it hasn't gone away.

In fact, it's kind of growing. I mean, the idea that I created any kind of iconic Christmas sound is ironic in the extreme for me because I am a creature of Halloween in every way, shape, or form. You know, Halloween was the night I looked forward to and Christmas was just like this, put my head under the pillow and cry. You know, it was just like, I want this to be over. I grew up as a lonely Jewish kid growing up in a neighborhood that there were, I'd had no Jewish friends.

So Christmas time every year, I was by myself and lonely and just wishing it would be over so I can get back to my life again. And so my appreciation of Christmas, I'm a latecomer to it because then I had my two daughters. And I started getting into it for the first time in my life through them. And so I developed this kind of real excitement about, oh, making a perfect Christmas, having a Christmas party, getting the presents just right, all for the pleasure of seeing their faces in the morning. So at the point when I did Nightmare Before Christmas, I was in the transition of like starting to think positively instead of like a dark cloud of depression rolling my way. The just pure anticipation of having this night before Christmas. Christmas and the anticipation of what's going to happen and then the presents in the morning. It's really wonderful.

And now from The Nightmare Before Christmas, here's What's This by Danny Elfman in its entirety. What's this? What's this? There's color everywhere. What's this? There's white things in the air. What's this? I can't believe my eyes. I must be dreaming. Wake up. Jack, this isn't fair. What's this? What's this? What's this? There's something very wrong. What's this? There's people singing songs. What's this? The streets are lined with little creatures laughing. Everybody seems so happy. How that possibly gone daffy? What is this? What's this? There's children throwing snowballs instead of throwing heads. The busy building toys. Absolutely no one's dead. There's frost in every window. Oh, I can't believe my eyes. And in my bones I feel the warmth that's coming from inside.

Oh look. What's this? The hanging mistletoe. They kiss? Why that looks so unique. They're gathering around, hearing story roasting chestnuts out of fire! What's this? What's this? In here, they've got a little tree. How queer! And who would ever think? And why? They're covering it with tiny little things. They've got electric lights on strings, and there's a smile in everyone. So now correct me if I'm wrong.

This looks like fun, this looks like fun. Oh, could it be? I got my wish. What's this? Oh my, what now? The children are asleep. But look, there's nothing underneath. No ghouls, no witcher. ghouls, the witches here to scream and scare them or and stare them only little cozy things secure inside their dreamland.

What's this? The monsters are all missing and the nightmares can be found and in their place there seems to be good feeling all around. Instead of screams, I swear I can hear music in the air. The smell of cakes and pies are absolute clowns. They're everywhere and all around. I've never felt so good before. This empty place inside of me is filling up. I simply cannot dead enough.

I want it, oh, I want it, oh I want it. For my own, I've got to know that, you know, it is this place that I am found. What is this? To learn more, visit songexploder.net. You'll find links to stream or download this track. And you can watch a trailer for the movie. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length.

And this is the first one that I'll be. It'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists. And it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Weinrope.

I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city. Like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage. and then I'll play with my band.

The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.cash.c.o. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. And that wraps up this year, the eighth year of Song Exploder.

Thanks so much to all the artists who shared their stories and music with me this year. Thanks so much to you for listening. We'll be back in January. This episode and the show's theme music were made by me. Editing help from Craig Ely and Casey Deal, artwork by Carlos Lerma, music clearance by Kathleen Smith, and production assistants from Chloe Parker.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about all our shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Twitter, Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway. And you can follow the show at Song Exploder. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt.

I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening and have a happy new year.