There aren’t many films as influential as Toy Story: John Lasseter’s magnificent achievement ensured that animated movies would never be the same again. What it – and most of the films that followed from Pixar in those first few years – did rather better than most of the imitators was that as well as the stunning technical achievement, it was actually just a great movie, plain and simple, one the whole family could watch together and enjoy in different ways.
More than three decades later, it can be hard to appreciate just how unusual it seemed at the time that Randy Newman might be writing score and songs for a film like this. Of course, the film completely changed the course of his life and career to the point that a lot of people’s reaction on hearing his name today would probably be to think of Woody and Buzz and not Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of Newman’s music in the film’s success. Other composers have come along and written brilliant music for Pixar in the years that have followed, but back in those early days the energy and the joy provided by the composer was such a shot in the arm, elevating what were brilliant movies anyway onto an even higher plane.
Of course, he also conjured up one of the most enduring Disney songs of all in the process, “You’ve Got a Friend In Me” – unlike the brilliant Menken musicals that were so popular at the time, for Toy Story the songs were sung by Newman – and actually, given that he has spent most of his career writing the most extraordinary songs and singing them in the first person but adopting the character of the song’s narrator, this was a real stroke of genius. And that gentle shuffle of the franchise’s signature song, the sincerity of the lyrics which perfectly capture in the moment the relationship between Woody and Andy – it’s one of the great movie songs.
They’re not as well-remembered now perhaps but the film’s other two songs – “Strange Things” and “I Will Go Sailing No More” – are pretty much beyond reproach as well. The former, with its catchy tune and gorgeous vocal harmonies from the backing singers with Newman, is a real toe-tapper; the latter, testing the composer’s vocals to the limit with its soaring leaps, an exquisite sung expression of the movie’s pivotal moment for Buzz Lightyear.
As for the score – the thing it’s full of, and I make no apologies for repeating myself, is joy. Newman had established himself as a world-class – if somewhat occasional – film composer by 1995 but it was generally on adult dramas. His own brand of Americana was at the heart of all his best scores – but obviously Toy Story needed something a bit different. Taking inspiration from the approach of Carl Stalling to the classic Warner Bros. cartoons, Newman and Lasseter decided that the music should follow an ultimate Mickey Mousing approach – when a character falls down, the music falls down; when they get up again, the music gets up with them. And it does this from moment one to the end. The energy is incredible – Hans Zimmer once called a piece of music “Too Many Notes and Not Enough Rests” and really that could be applied to the collected body of work Randy Newman put together for Pixar.
The key though is – just as with the film – this isn’t just some technical accomplishment that sits atop the film. Somehow Newman managed to apply this scoring technique right into the heart of the film. Everything – every last note – is done with such care and attention and most importantly with such sincerity. In truth the music doesn’t just fall down when the character falls down – it makes you feel what they’re feeling so you fall down with them.
From the rambunctious little fanfare that opens the score (on top of the Disney logo – and sadly now excised from the streaming copies of the film), the playful cowboy music accompanying Andy’s birthday, the emergence of the heroic fanfare for Buzz, all the jazz-influenced techniques used for various “creeping around” scenes, the frantic momentum of the later action sequences – the score has such an extraordinary narrative structure.
There are loads of little motifs developed through the score that have gone on to be heard in the subsequent films in the series – you might think (especially if you read some of the reviews of this that were written at the time it first came out) that it’s not such a thematic score but in fact there are so many of them, perhaps that’s why people didn’t notice!
The massively popular original soundtrack album offered a wonderful experience of the score but there was a real treat in 2015 when Disney added it to their Legacy Collection of deluxe soundtrack releases – allowing listeners to experience the whole thing, along with demos of the songs including a couple that didn’t end up making it (“The Fool” and “Plastic Spaceman”). It’s a wonderful way of experiencing a formidable achievement in film music.
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