Halloween was this past weekend, so I thought it would be fitting to discuss some music commonly associated with the holiday. Perhaps one of the most popular Halloween movies is "The Nightmare Before Christmas" produced by Tim Burton. It follows the story of Jack Skellington, the leader of Halloween Town, known as 'The Pumpkin King'. After accidentally discovering a door leading to Christmas Town, Jack formulates a plan to kidnap Santa Claus and take over his job as the leader of Christmas Town.
The music in this soundtrack was written by Danny Elfman, a famous composer who also provided the singing voice for Jack. The score was extremely well written. For our Christmas concert this year, my band will be performing selections from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" soundtrack. I am very excited because this is one of my all time favorite movies and I enjoy the music very much. The selections we will be performing in our arrangement are "Overture", "What's This?", "Christmas Eve Montage", "Sally's Song", and "This Is Halloween".
What's This?
In this upbeat, exciting tune, Jack enters Christmas Town by accident after discovering doors deep in the forest leading to many different holiday towns. During this song, Jack discovers many odd and new things he has never seen before, such as Christmas trees and lights, stockings, and Santa Claus (who he believes to be Sandy Claws). Each phrase starts out with the intense melody and slows down and becomes more sincere towards the end as Jack reflects upon how nice all of these Christmas time things are. Then, the melody comes back once he discovers something new and exciting again and his attention is drawn elsewhere. This song is where Jack's fascination with Christmas Town begins. Later on, this fascination becomes an obsession, which is the beginning stage of the rising action of the plot line.
Sally's Song
This song illustrates Sally's conflict with herself regarding Jack. She is in love with him and she cares about him very much, but she worries he does not feel the same way about her. Sally had a vision that Jack's plan to kidnap Christmas will go disastrously wrong and she is scared for him. In this song she is concerned about what she should do because she wants to stay by Jack's side and support him, but she does not want anything to happen to him so she does not want him to follow through with his plans. The more she thinks about it the more she fears Jack does not feel the same way about her and that makes her very sad. This soft tune is very beautiful but also heart-wrenching at the same time. The music is slow and expressive as Sally describes her love for Jack, and it is also filled with dissonance and tension as she expresses her fears that he is not in love with her and that he will get hurt. By the end of the song, Sally is convinced that she is not the right girl for Jack and she will let him move on to find someone else.
This Is Halloween
This song is perhaps the most well known song from "The Nightmare Before Christmas". It takes place at the very beginning of the movie and serves as the introduction to Halloween Town. Throughout the piece, many ghosts and ghouls take turns singing about Halloween Town and what it is all about. During the song many the viewers catch a first glimpse of some of the main characters, such as Sally, the Mayor, and eventually Jack Skellington at the end. Jack is introduced at the end as 'The Pumpkin King' because he is the leader of Halloween Town and all the monsters adore him. This song is very dark and mysterious, yet it is fast-paced. This is not a common pairing of musical elements. Usually dark, mysterious music is slow and eerie, and fast-paced music is often bright and happy. Using this combination helps depict Halloween Town as spooky and creepy yet intense and crazy at the same time. This tune is a perfect introduction to the movie because it grabs the audiences' attention right away and keeps them wanting to find out more about Jack and Halloween Town.
The music in this movie is phenomenal and adds lots of substance to the plot. I highly recommend both this film and the music in it to everyone. If you have not seen "The Nightmare Before Christmas", you should watch it sometime very soon!
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