ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You famously co-wrote “The Rainbow Connection” for the Muppets.
How did you end up back in their orbit on this?
PAUL WILLIAMS: I started out as a fan.
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I was a big fan of Jim Henson back toThe Ed Sullivan Show.
I felt like a tribal connection to the Muppets.
The opening number is “Scrooge.”
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How did you find that driving, propulsive narrative for the song?
Don’t have a go at control.
Don’t be hands on with it.
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Don’t be yanking on the reins.
I get up in the morning and I say, “Lead me where you need me.”
We know what the song is about.
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We know what happens visually during the song.
Let me know when you have a good idea."
We see his feet as the door opens and only his feet and he’s walking in the mud.
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So I recorded it.
And I was like, “Oh, my God, that’s really good.
Right through, “There goes Mr. Humbug, there goes Mr.
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If they gave a prize for being mean, the winner would be him.”
And I think I got that far and just went, “Wow.”
Was “No Cheeses for Us Meeses” part of that initial discovery?
That might be my favorite lyric.
I wrote that a little late.
I continued to write the song in the next couple days.
“Cheeses for us meeses” is also one of my favorite lines.
What a fabulous sandbox.
What a great place to go play.
You wrote “Evergreen” forBarbra Streisand.
There’s a part of me that is a four-year-old as an audience member.
To write for Kermit is like writing forJimmy Stewart.
All those elements are in Kermit as well.
Writing for Kermit is very much writing for a layered, interesting personality and definitely an old soul.
I had seen some storyboards and the like.
If you’re not touched by that, there’s something wrong with you.
That’s what Kenny and I wanted to do with “Rainbow Connection.”
Daddy, how many more sleeps?”
And it’s four more sleeps till Christmas, three more sleeps, two more sleeps.
Finally, this is it.
One more sleep till Christmas.
How did you strike that balance?
I used a lot of Marley’s expressions.
A lot of the original Dickens is in the language of the song.
I thought it was a clever idea.
I don’t think I appreciated how good it was going to be.
There’s something about two characters doing something that is sometimes done by one.
One of them is expressing something about the action to the other.
They get to have a reaction.
It’s so much less difficult, sometimes, than having one person talk about something.
It feels so much less like exposition when it’s two characters having an interchange.
These two characters have such a history, Statler and Waldorf, of just being these total grumps.
It felt like perfect casting.
Now it’s finally back because they found the footage.
What are your thoughts on the song and its place in the narrative?
Were you upset when it was cut?
Are you glad it’s back?
Oh, my God.
Not only am I glad it’s back, but I have to hand it specifically to the fans.
Every Christmas there’s been this growing chorus of: Why is that not in the movie?
It’s important to the story.
At the time that the song was cut, I was like, “Well, okay.
I mean, I understand.”
So I figured I was in good company.
“It Feels Like Christmas” really captures the spirit of the season to me.
How did you figure out how to catalog that in song?
Well I was sitting there to write “It Feels Like Christmas.”
And I asked myself, “What feels like Christmas?
What are the things that occur to me when I’m talking about Christmas?”
It’s the singing of a street corner choir.
That has to be Jim Henson somewhere hovering overhead going, “Don’t forget this and this.”
“Bless Us All” always makes me cry.
It’s a prayer, and I made it very personal.
It’s really in the bridge.
[Singing] I’m trying to remember the exact words.
Catch us when we fall, teach us in our dreams.
Let us always run from anger.
Even though it was 1990, let us run from anger still feels timely because these are angry times.
The closer I got to it, the safer and the better I felt.
Was there one that you found the most difficult to write?
But to hear “A Thankful Heart” withMichael Caineexuberant in his resurrection is really just so joyful.
I believe that gratitude and generosity are fuel.
You put out some good for somebody, you get good coming back to you.
“A Thankful Heart” would have to probably be the best description of who I am today.
