Songwriter Paul Williams on the inspirations for his tunes in The Muppet Christmas Carol
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When Paul Williams got the call to write the songs for The Muppet Christmas Carol, he felt like Scrooge on Christmas morning.
Newly sober after a 10-year spiral into addiction, the "Rainbow Connection" hitmaker felt that Scrooge's tale of redemption spoke directly to his own experiences. "When I got the call from [director] Brian Henson to come and talk about doing The Muppet Christmas Carol, I was about a year sober," Williams tells EW. "I'm a recovering alcoholic and addict and a retired amateur chemist, I like to say, and had that reputation. So here I am with a new life, this feeling of community, and experiencing, basically, a spiritual awakening."
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"Writing the songs for this movie and experiencing the extreme gratitude of being back at work on something that I loved — with people that I loved — is beyond my ability to really express."
Though much of the dialogue of the beloved film, now celebrating its 30th anniversary, is taken straight from Charles Dickens' novel, the songs as written by Williams are pure Muppets. He penned everything from the punny opener "Scrooge" to Kermit's wistful "One More Sleep 'Til Christmas" and the heartfelt "Bless Us All," parroting the famous words of Tiny Tim.
In advance of the film's anniversary, we called up Williams to talk about his love of writing for the Muppets and the stories behind some of The Muppet Christmas Carol's most memorable songs.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You famously co-wrote "The Rainbow Connection" for the Muppets. How did you end up back in their orbit on this?
PAUL WILLIAMS: I started out as a fan. The best thing about what we do for a living is that we don't have to give up our fan cards. I was a big fan of Jim Henson back to The Ed Sullivan Show. Then on the road with my band in the '70s, the one thing that was a constant wherever we were, we would start our day with all of us watching Sesame Street. I felt like a tribal connection to the Muppets. I can't explain it and it just sounds weird, but I went over to do The Muppet Show in London, and it was immediate. Not very long after that, I was asked if I would write the songs for Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, an HBO Special Jim was doing. The first thing I did after Jim passed was The Muppet Christmas Carol, which was an amazing opportunity of timing and good luck.
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The opening number is "Scrooge." It's so playful and fun and sets us up for exactly what we're in for, with the clever rhyming. How did you find that driving, propulsive narrative for the song?
When I wrote the song, I had, in early sobriety, developed an attitude about life, which was basically: Turn it over. Don't try to control. Don't be hands on with it. Don't be yanking on the reins. I get up in the morning and I say, "Lead me where you need me." So if I'm someplace where I'm useful, I'm going to be someplace where I'm going to be comfortable, and if I'm comfortable, I do my best work and maybe it's going to be good for me and the world around me.
I took a yellow pad and a little tape recorder and a crime novel, and I walked into a park in Brentwood and I sat down. Basically, it amounts to a creative prayer: "Big Amigo, we're going to write a song about Scrooge here. We know what the song is about. We know what happens visually during the song. Let me know when you have a good idea." And I started reading the novel and about four pages in, I put it down and I went, "Okay, all right, I get it." We see his feet as the door opens and only his feet and he's walking in the mud. [singing] He's walking in the mud, [singing], so the first thing I got was that rhythm. If I had been trying to write it down, I wouldn't have had it, but I had a tape recorder. So I recorded it. And I was like, "Oh, my God, that's really good. Thank you!" Right through, "There goes Mr. Humbug, there goes Mr. Grim. If they gave a prize for being mean, the winner would be him." And I think I got that far and just went, "Wow."
Was "No Cheeses for Us Meeses" part of that initial discovery? That might be my favorite lyric.
I wrote that a little late. I continued to write the song in the next couple days. "Cheeses for us meeses" is also one of my favorite lines. The beauty of the task is when you had the script as the bible, you have the humor, you have the respect for Dickens, and where else am I going to be asked to write songs for singing cabbages and mice? What a fabulous sandbox. What a great place to go play.
You wrote "Evergreen" for Barbra Streisand. But what is it like writing a song when you know Kermit the Frog is going to be singing it?
Well, it's funny because meeting Jim and Frank Oz and the like, I've always said that if I'm talking to Frank and Jim and they have Kermit and Piggy with them, there are five of us in a conversation. There's a part of me that is a four-year-old as an audience member. To write for Kermit is like writing for Jimmy Stewart. I keep going back to Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, who has this approachable, lovable adult behavior and it is authentic. He's not a superman, he's not a hero in that proportion, he's perplexed by problems. All those elements are in Kermit as well. Writing for Kermit is very much writing for a layered, interesting personality and definitely an old soul.
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"One More Sleep 'Til Christmas" has this lovely wintry imagery on screen, from the ice skating to the end where Kermit sees the shooting star. How much of that did you know what it was going to look like that when you were writing the song?
I had seen some storyboards and the like. I honestly don't remember how much of what I've seen, but I was just touched by that shooting star when Kermit stands there. When Kenny Ascher and I wrote "Rainbow Connection," the most comparable moment of what we were going to try to do was Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio. When he takes off his top hat, steps up into that skyline, looks at sky and sings "When You Wish Upon a Star." It's stunning. If you're not touched by that, there's something wrong with you. That's what Kenny and I wanted to do with "Rainbow Connection." But I remember with my kids, the expression was always, "How many more sleeps till Christmas, Dad? Daddy, how many more sleeps?" And it's four more sleeps till Christmas, three more sleeps, two more sleeps. Finally, this is it. One more sleep till Christmas. So what started with my children, Cole and Sarah, who are now beautiful adults, wound its way into "One More Sleep 'Til Christmas."
"Marley and Marley" is both hilarious and borrows a lot from Jacob Marley's message in the book. How did you strike that balance?
I used a lot of Marley's expressions. A lot of the original Dickens is in the language of the song. I thought it was a clever idea. I don't think I appreciated how good it was going to be. There's something about two characters doing something that is sometimes done by one. One of them is expressing something about the action to the other. They get to have a reaction. It's so much less difficult, sometimes, than having one person talk about something. It feels so much less like exposition when it's two characters having an interchange. These two characters have such a history, Statler and Waldorf, of just being these total grumps. It felt like perfect casting.
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"When Love Is Gone" was cut and it came back for the VHS, and then it got cut again. Now it's finally back because they found the footage. What are your thoughts on the song and its place in the narrative? Were you upset when it was cut? Are you glad it's back?
Oh, my God. Not only am I glad it's back, but I have to hand it specifically to the fans. Every Christmas there's been this growing chorus of: Why is that not in the movie? It's important to the story. If you're providing a song score for a story, the most important elements of the task are to write songs and advance the story or to show us something of the inner life of the characters. I felt like it was one of my most successful efforts ever to really advance the story and let the audience see the most important event in his life and what his greed had cost him. At the time that the song was cut, I was like, "Well, okay. I get it. I mean, I understand." And of course, one of the thoughts was that right before The Wizard of Oz was released, they were cutting and they had actually cut "Over the Rainbow" because they didn't think kids would sit still for it and at the last minute they put it back. So I figured I was in good company.
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"It Feels Like Christmas" really captures the spirit of the season to me. How did you figure out how to catalog that in song?
Well I was sitting there to write "It Feels Like Christmas." And I asked myself, "What feels like Christmas? What are the things that occur to me when I'm talking about Christmas?" And the first thing that comes to mind are not necessarily the internal feelings, but what are the things that make me begin to feel that spirit? It's the singing of a street corner choir. It's going home and getting warm by the fire and all the places we find love, it feels like Christmas. It's in the giving of a gift to another, a pair of mittens that were made by your mother. That has to be Jim Henson somewhere hovering overhead going, "Don't forget this and this."
"Bless Us All" always makes me cry. The line, "God bless us every one," is probably the most well-known thing Dickens ever wrote, so what was that like, taking that as a jumping off point for a song?
It's a prayer, and I made it very personal. What would I pray for? It's really in the bridge. [Singing] I'm trying to remember the exact words. Catch us when we fall, teach us in our dreams. Let us always run from anger. Even though it was 1990, let us run from anger still feels timely because these are angry times. Sometimes I don't recognize the world around us and I don't think we've ever needed the Muppets and The Muppet Christmas Carol and that spirit of Jim Henson more than we need it right now. I get very Jiminy Cricket about life in general and all, but I think that there is the pure elegance of kindness in the legacy of Jim Henson. The closer I got to it, the safer and the better I felt. His wisdom, I hope, made its way into the work that I did with him and with Brian. More and more needs to be said about Brian's direction and about his heart and soul and the work because it's impressive.
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Do you have a favorite song from the project, whether it's something you're proudest of or just one that always makes you smile? Was there one that you found the most difficult to write?
"When Love Is Gone" has a really special place and its return within the work felt really important. But to hear "A Thankful Heart" with Michael Caine exuberant in his resurrection is really just so joyful. I believe that gratitude and generosity are fuel. You put out some good for somebody, you get good coming back to you. "A Thankful Heart" would have to probably be the best description of who I am today. There's a lesson to be learned from the Dickens story and from the film, and that's that a thankful heart is a result of generous behavior and God knows we need that right now.
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