The Musician Insight

An introduction to set the tone: The uncanny as normality

This is Halloween, the opening song of The Nightmare before Christmas, is the perfect example of the use of music to introduce the characters and the tone of the movie to the audience.

Throughout the piece, we meet the different monsters of Halloween town, all presenting themselves one by one, and describing their purpose. The instrumental consists of an orchestra composed of a piano, a string section, woodwinds and more, painting an atmosphere of grandeur and suspense throughout the song.

The cowbells emphasizes this sensation of mystery and scare, but despite all, this world is a place of equality, where everyone can be they true selves, without any complex or judgment. For the duration of the song, we can find the opposition between the assumed darkness of those characters with their real nature: while fright is everywhere, evil is not (“it’s our job, but we’re not mean, in our town of Halloween”), indicating us that nothing is as it seems.

This is especially interesting when two main characters are introduced: Jack, the pumpkin king, and Oogie Boogie, who will be opposed at one point in the movie, showing us that evil can take different appearances.

This is Halloween also foreshadows the place of Jack in his community, as the leader of the town, implying the future conflicts after Jack’s wish for change, who will engage the other characters’ evolutions and desires. All in all, This is Halloween tells us, in its own way, the story that we are about to see, and the affects it is going to have on our character.

Photo © Walt Disney Studios