Oscar Winning Composer on Three Decades of Working on This Film Franchise

For the past three decades, Randy Newman has been making us weep with his Toy Story soundtrack. His score has been synonymous with our favorite toys since we first met Woody and Buzz in 1995.

He spoke to PEOPLE about his inspiration and how the acclaimed 82-year-old composer writes from the perspective of pull-string cowboys and an intergalactic space ranger.

"I mean, I'll occasionally say something that resonates to me personally," Newman said. "Novelists try to write themselves out of what they do. Songwriters are supposed to put themselves in what they do. The public likes them best when that happens."

The working relationship started when you wrote "You've Got a Friend in Me" for the first Toy Story. From there, he created a lifelong relationship with Pixar and has worked on 10 films with the studio.

"They told me they wanted it to be about their friendship and almost nothing else. That was really the prime importance to them, that that was emphasized," he said about the iconic song, which he said came to him quickly.

So what keeps Newman coming back to Pixar after so many years and movies, well, it's as simple as they do "good work."

"It's been a privilege to be connected with it. And I believe, to a degree, I've helped them do what they've done in Monsters and Cars 3 and [Cars] 1 and Toy Story," he admitted, looking back at his success with Pixar.

He added, "You do more looking back now, with the streaming and all. You hear what you did. I never used to listen to what I did six weeks later, but I do now. And all those pictures were pretty good, the scores I did. And they're difficult jobs, not as difficult as Hook was for Johnny [Williams], but difficult jobs."

Three decades later, what does Randy Newman want the legacy of the Toy Story scores to be? Well, firstly, "good" but ultimately he wants his work to enhance the movie.

"But if it makes the picture work better, as hopefully that's what I try to do every time - everything I did, tried to do that - that's enough. If that scene worked with Andy and Bonnie trading toys and stuff [in Toy Story 3], when I saw it with the crowd, it really worked that scene. I was moved by it and so were they."

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This story was originally published June 20, 2026 at 12:07 PM.