She Owns the Part

As anyone who knows me can attest to, I have very limited musical tastes. I acquired them in high school, and really nothing much has changed since then. And, also as anyone who knows me can attest to, I am pretty obsessive about things I like.

My kids really had no choice but to like Def Leppard, Oingo Boingo and Journey. And since Danny Elfman moved from singing with Oingo Boingo to writing movie soundtracks, my kids are well acquainted with those ventures as well. Ask my kids what movie soundtracks Danny Elfman has written, and they will be able to list nearly all of them (Rhys is really only well-versed in recent work such as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Spiderman").

In 1993, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was released. Directed by my favorite director Tim Burton (then, as well as now), I thought this was a simply amazing piece of work. The animation was spectacular, the comedy a nice shade of dark and the music....well, the music was awesome. The whole score was written by Danny Elfman, and he was the singing voice of Jack, the main character, as well. For a Danny Elfman fan, this movie was like a slice of heaven.

Quite inappropriately, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was one of the first movies Sawyer ever saw. (She saw it soon after the Star Wars Trilogy.) And while the Star Wars movies didn't spark her fancy as much as I would have liked, she absolutely loved "Nightmare." She was able to sing all the songs and recite dialogue at the very young age of four. And this movie has been a staple in her collection of favorites, even as she starts to develop her own lists of obsessions. She also loves all things Danny Elfman, and sometimes it is this common obsession that gets us through some of those inevitable rocky patches.

This year, in her chorus class, they are singing songs from "The Nightmare Before Christmas"! I mean, seriously, how awesome is that? She and I were both so excited that other people thought that movie and music was as cool as we did. Auditions were held in all the chorus classes for the "Jack" solos (the Danny Elfman part from the movie). With no hesitation, Sawyer auditioned for these solos. This music is a part of her, it was natural for her to get up in front of everyone and belt it out.

There was a lot of competition for these solos; but Sawyer got the part hands down. Her teacher told her, "You owned the part, no one else had the same passion."

I can't wait to watch Sawyer perform these songs. She has been practicing relentlessly, and she does own the part. But quite frankly, she has owned the part since she was four.

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