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.
