The soundtrack was composed by composer and then-Oingo Boingo frontman Danny Elfman. Elfman sought to make the soundtrack timeless and drew on classic popular composers for inspiration. He explained: "I wanted it to sound like it was written 50 or 100 years ago, so I turned my own influences for that stuff. Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, which was a major thing in my life, was a source, as well musicals from Cole Porter and Gershwin, and to a certain extent, Rodgers and Hammerstein."[5] For "What's This?" Elfman sought to capture the rapid-pace lyricism of Gilbert and Sullivan.
In a later interview, Elfman likened Jack Skellington's experience as the leader of Halloweentown looking to escape to a different world to his discontentment with being the leader of his band, Oingo Boingo. He recalled, "'I always felt Jack was a part of me. ... When I wrote those songs, I was in kind of a unique position, because like Jack I was the king of my own little kingdom – that was Oingo Boingo. And like Jack, I really wanted a way out, but I didn't know how to get out because so many people depended on me. So my own psychological mindset at the time was that I was writing from my own perspective as much as his, because I understood what it felt like to want something else."[6]
Danny Elfman, Catherine O'Hara, The Citizens of Halloween Town
2:45
19.
"Closing"
Patrick Stewart
1:26
20.
"End Title (score)"
5:05
On some versions of the CD, "End Credits" is two tracks (20 and 21) with lengths of 1:10 and 3:55 respectively. In this case, track 21 is considered a "hidden track" but features the same music as the 20-track release, which keeps "End Credits" as one track.
The "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" and "This Is Halloween" demos are reversed in the track listing on the backside of the album cover and in the album booklet.
Personnel
Credits and personnel adapted from the 2006 edition of the soundtrack's liner notes.
There are several foreign-language versions of the soundtrack, each features tracks sung by vocalists in their native language as well as original score tracks by Danny Elfman.
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