The Muppet Movie Soundtrack

Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher created The Greatest Soundtrack Ever in 1979 for Jim Henson, The Muppets, & Us.

You have feelings, and you’re possibly on-guard for being told right off-the-bat that The Muppets, Jim Henson’s brilliant, fictional creation, released the greatest soundtrack ever in 1979. Your mind is racing, “GA GA GA GA GA. Blah blah blah, Ondee, HUE ES SOUL wrong. THESIS SOUL CRAYSEE! A FROGGIE AND A PEEGY?! WATT?! COMO? QUIERO?” How could you forget “Purple Rain”, “Footloose”, “Top Gun”, “Saturday Night Fever”, “Grease”, “The Graduate”, and “A Hard Day’s Night”? Easy.

Gonzo The Great

GONZO, nerds, Gonzo the Great, blue, depressed, outcast Frackle from another planet, played by the voice of Dave Goelz. That’s how.

If you’re a child of the 70s and 80s, the most lasting impressions that pop music’s culture left on your memory was probably created by TV show theme songs, John Williams’ Soundtrack Scores (Star Wars, Jaws, Superman, and more), or The Muppets.  Muppets, talking animals mixed in with weirdos, aliens, and cranky savants did for many kids what Star Wars did for others, but with great music. Gonzo sitting round a campfire lonely and singing; or Kermit sitting lonely on a lily pad with a banjo, Jim Henson’s Muppets were, and still are, far ahead of children’s abilities to understand fully developed adult themes and emotions. The Muppet Movie Soundtrack released in 1979, on Atlantic Records, reflects such.

L to R: Ascher & Williams

Paul Williams, along with Kenny Ascher, wrote a set of songs for The Muppet Movie that broke barriers between contemporary adult pop music, folk, comedy, ragtime-saloon and children’s music.  Long before Randy Newman became the post-Reagen era, American, composer of choice for children’s movies, Jim Henson’s Muppets couldn’t have been better suited for a writer like Paul Williams in the 70s. He had scored hits like ”Rainy Days & Mondays” and “We’ve Only Just Begun”in the 70s with The Carpenters; as well as winning an Academy Award for “Evergreen”, sung by the mighty Kristofferson and Streisand in “A Star Is Born.”  Taking his life-long work of puppeteer-ing to the big screen, Henson needed the right balance between adult emotions and children’s minds to tell a story. There’s no better bridge to travel between all ages than music.

Kermit floating on a lily pad playing a banjo and singing Williams and Ascher’s “Rainbow Connection”; a lonely and depressing melody sung by a frog (Jim Henson) has become an optimistic folk anthem. ”The lovers, the dreamers, and me.” sings our hero: a skinny, ugly, weirdo frog in love with a caked up, and strangely attractive, pig. The parallels to humans are not evident as a child; as an adult, Williams and Ascher’s songs combined with Henson’s dark, innocent sense of humor, becomes easily transparent.  Singing with Frank Oz as Fozzie on “Movin Right Along”, or dueting with himself as Rawlf (& Kermit) on “I Hope That Something Better Comes Along”, Henson’s character vocals disguise adult themes that make  up one of the most disturbing children’s songs ever written:  lost love, women that drive men nuts, moving on, getting drunk, being depressed, and horniness, “… the urge is righteous but the face is wrong, I hope that something better comes along.” The studio edited out part of the song for it’s 1979 release , keeping kids in mind, but it doesn’t make it less enjoyable as an adult.

Frank Oz’s nasally falsetto performance on Miss Piggy’s “Never Before, Never Again” could be intolerable coming out of the mouths of 70s songbirds like Barbara Streisand and Anne Murray; but  being that it’s a man singing like a heartbroken pig, it’s hilarious. As a child, however, it was the worst song on the record. Funny how the old saying “one day you’ll be old enough to know why” resonates through-out Williams & Aschers compositions. They, with Henson, utilized creative foreshadowing to play a positive, life-lesson prank on the kids of the 70s that still pays off with goosebumps 3 decades later.

Kermit and his maker, Henson, on the set of The Muppet Movie

Every Muppet Movie soundtrack fan I meet has a favorite song highlight, but for my money and the sake of those reading this, The Great Gonzo’s camp-side lullaby is a fire full of goosebumps.

We’ll both be completely at home in midair.
We’re flyin’, not walkin’, on featherless wings.
We can hold onto love like invisible strings.
There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.
Part heaven, part space, or have I found my place?
You can just visit, but I plan to stay.

I’m going to go back there someday….

Heaven was a far off imaginary place as a child, often dreamlike and narrated by a decrepit, large nosed blue creature from space named Gonzo. It wasn’t Tattoine or The Millennium Falcon, it was a mysterious, sad-happy place with no name you could float through.  A few years would pass and heaven became a place miserable rock stars tried to get into by pretending to be something like Gonzo: depressed, honest, from another planet, and slightly introverted with a guitar but wanting your approval. Then heaven–the idea of it or whatever it is–becomes real and depressing. Gonzo’s now more than the blue puppet from space first introduced to innocently, as a child. He’s something else, he’s some of us; still here, still weird, and still wondering what’s out there and still blue.

Some of our family and friends have left already for this place Paul Williams, Kenny Ascher, & Gonzo warned us about on record and around a campfire in 1979 . This happy place with sad melodies, bittersweet and timeless, must be heaven if Jim Henson has anything to do with pulling heart-strings up there. The Muppet Movie Soundtrack is an earthly place I visit frequently, often reminding me why I love  (and hate) all kinds of music to begin with; and to never forget a few reasons why refusing to grow up and act like many other so-called responsible adults is ok too. Never forget, the froggie is following a piggy–if that’s your path–or follow thy leader, Gonzo, into the unknown.

AW