6. Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas:

I did something a little odd with this CD, as I did with the Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure CD.  We tracked down all the cues from The Nightmare Before Christmas score that were not on the original soundtrack and, in the process of restoring it, I decided to insert the cues in film-sequence order instead of adding them as bonus tracks at the end of the disc. I’m not sure exactly why; it just seemed like the right thing to do. There’s something kind of nice in hearing everything exactly as it played in the film—probably because so much of the score is echoing themes from songs that have already played, or pre-announcing a theme that is about to appear in an upcoming song. 

I did think of this score as something of a jigsaw puzzle tying together all the songs, and I thought that hearing it in proper sequence might be interesting.

For fans of the original soundtrack CD who object to my rethinking and reordering this version, I apologize.

Also of note is that we restored the “Christmas Eve Montage” to its full length, just as it appeared in the film, instead of the edited version on the original soundtrack, which was a bit tricky, but I think it’s correct or really, really close.

Another trivia point: I also included some of the “kids” voices as they go by on the sleigh in “What’s This”, much as I did with Pee-wee’s voice on the Big Adventure soundtrack. They always seemed so much a part of the song to me.

—DE