CraveOnline: What are your favorite movie theme songs?
Bret McKenzie: I love Randy Newman, Toy Story, “You’ve Got a Friend In Me.” I love Bowie’s “Magic Dance” in Labyrinth. “Dance the magic…”
That’s my favorite movie of all time, so I love that.
Yeah, let’s talk about that for a bit. It’s so good. Such a weird film though, right? I’m working on a musical fairy tale at the moment and I’ve been watching films like that and the story in that is insane. She hates her baby brother. She gets angry with this baby and it gets taken away. It’s such a strange premise for her to leave, so then she’s chasing this baby that she didn’t like and wants to get it back and there’s this weird love interest between Bowie and her, this sort of unspoken… They’re at the ball dancing as though there’s a romance.
No, he says he wants her to be his wife.
It’s so weird, right? I don’t know if you could do that now. Anyway, I love that song, that’s great and then I also like all the ‘80s ballads. I’m just trying to think of an example.
Top Gun?
Top Gun, yeah, but what was the song in that?
“Take My Breath Away.”
Yeah, I feel like we’ve lost the use of a song the way they were used in the ‘80s. I guess the Bond film was the most recent successful really good song.
Skyfall?
Skyfall, yeah.
Is the musical fairy tale you’re working on Muppets Most Wanted?
No, not Muppety but with creatures.
Is Muppets Most Wanted still a musical?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They did the first test screening last night for friends and family, so I’m just about to start doing post-production on it.
Are you composing the songs again, or just music supervisor this time?
I’ve written all the songs.
Good, so far the only credit I saw was music supervisor, but it’s just IMDB.
It’s because there really isn’t a formal title for songwriter. It’s more like song any-lyrics-by-me.
