Danny Elfman Saw His Own Struggles In Nightmare Before Christmas' Jack Skellington

If you were around when "The Nightmare Before Christmas" first opened in theaters, it might freak you out to learn that it's been 30 years since then. The film, adapted from a story by Tim Burton and directed by Henry Selick, tells the musical tale of Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon and sung by Danny Elfman, who also wrote the music), the King of Halloween Town, who is having an emotional crisis. He's looking for something different and new when he comes across doors for other holiday towns. When he visits Christmas Town, he thinks it will be much better than what he has. He returns to Halloween Town and tries to get the spooky residents to embrace Christmas, which they do, but in their own, unique and creepy way.

Elfman, who was the lead vocalist and played rhythm guitar for the band Oingo Boingo at the time, composed the music for the film in just around 30 days (via the book "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas Visual Companion" by Tim Bossert, which celebrates the film's anniversary). Elfman spoke in the book about how, despite the fact that Burton created the character, Jack Skellington was echoing his own feelings about where he was in his life, making it easy for him to compose Jack's songs.

Elfman spoke about being a part of what is now a holiday classic, and how it sort of mirrored what he was going through. In his own words:

"Even though it's completely Tim's story — and I have nothing to do with the story — I interpreted the character totally through my own life. [Jack Skellington's story] was so my story. I was a guy who was in a rock band. That was my world. I was the king of that world, [but] I wanted out. I really wanted out, but I didn't know how to get out. I felt I needed to evolve; I'd done it. I felt trapped. Everybody was depending on me. I want to stress this because it was my story, but I never told Tim about this."

He added that he "interpreted it strictly through my own perspective because when he told me the story, it's like, I'm thinking, 'Oh, do I get it.' So, when I was writing about Jack and Christmas Town and Halloween Town, I was really writing about me and my band — and my need to find another form of expression that I was desperate for." It seemed to have worked because the film came out in 1993, and in 1995, Elfman left Oingo Boingo after a farewell tour.

Elfman has spoken about this before, including in a 2014 interview with A.V. Club. As he told the outlet:

"I wanted to leave Oingo Boingo, but I couldn't, so Oingo Boingo was my version of Halloweenland. I was the king of my own little world — as anyone is when they're the singer-songwriter in a band. I was trapped and couldn't leave [...] It was more the emotional motivation was similar. There was a strong link between myself at that period of my life and Jack and his ordeal."

Incidentally, the film scoring lined up with another issue he was facing as a rock band member, as he mentioned in a 2015 interview with L.A. Weekly. "I sustained so much hearing damage for 18 years with Boingo that it made the decision for me," Elfman explained.

What's so fascinating about all of this isn't just that he was writing music for a fictional character that was mirroring his own life. It was also that he was doing it without a script. In the documentary "The Making of The Nightmare Before Christmas," Elfman clarified that he had worked from a story that Burton had created, and they were in a time crunch. He recalled that he would meet with Burton, look at the drawings he had of the characters, and talked about what they were going to be doing in the coming days. Then Elfman would sit down and write a song about it.

Elfman has, of course, scored many other films, including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure," "Men in Black," "Good Will Hunting," "Big Fish," Mars Attacks!," "Spider-Man," "Avengers: Age of Ultron," and "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" (to name just a few).

"The Nightmare Before Christmas" is streaming on Disney+.