Mel Martin plays a soprano sax solo, on the rest... I forget. Much credit should go to Ed Bogas for interpreting my melody ideas and for the musical arrangements.

The concept and design was devised by our animation director, Jeff Hale. It was his idea that I create basic tracks then record as 'wild-lines' the Pointers shouting the various 2-11 numbers in different intensities and different compliments of voices. Then, each time the pin ball hit a selected number he would drop in these (off-key-couldn't be helped) wild lines. While I have retained first or second generation masters (quarter inch tape now converted to DAT and CD) of 99% my audio productions over the years it is for above reason there was never a 'master' track. This news came as a dissapointment to the folks back at Sesame Street who were planning the current CD release. Unfortunately, I have retained nothing from this session. Matter of fact, I haven't heard the piece in years.

On the techinal side, we recorded at Richard Beggs' (Francis Ford Coppola's) studio in the Columbus Towers Building, 24 track, analog-of course. Mag transfers were made at Imagination, Inc. which is long out of business. And, again unfortunately, there is nothing left of either the animation cells nor audio elements for any of that beautiful work.

Personally, I am honored to be thought of in the same company as Herbie Hancock and Frank Zappa. My approach was to write the piece in 12-4 or 12-8 time but that didn't quite work out. And it wasn't until we had completed the project that I realized I may have stolen the first five notes of the Woody Woodpecker Song. Something I'm sure neither Hancock nor Zappa would be guilty of.

Cordially, Walt Kraemer

(The below comments were cribbed from www.frownland.com‘s archives, Sept 2003)

Walt Kraemer has been kind enough to email me with some information about the song. So here it is, definitive and from the person who composed and produced it, everything you ever wanted to know about the Sesame Street Pinball Song.

As composer and producer of Sesame Street’s Pinball Music I was flattered to find interest in something I created over a quarter of a century ago. Our company, Imagination, Inc in San Francisco produced a great number of animation pieces for Children’s Television Workshop at that time so forgive me if I’m a bit hazy as to some of the particulars.

Those were indeed the Pointer Sisters. All four of them. At the time only three were performing regularly and I recall budgeting for just the three when June showed up at the session with the rest. It was a bonus. The basic track was performed by San Francisco Bay Area musicians and since there were to be eleven pieces of animation I had the track structured to accommodate three different lead instrument overdubs to give the pieces some variety. On some numbers Andy Narell plays a steel drums solo, on others

On the album 'Blow', check this remix album for the awesome Amon Tobin version - in fact check anything with the name Foetus on it as he's a largely unacknowledged genius

Originally from the B-side of the ‘Horizons’ 12″, this remix morphed into another version on the ‘Man With A Movie Camera’ album

Originating from around '98 when we did a remix swap with Sukia, this sat on DAT for years before being exhumed for the extras disc on the Xen Cuts compilation. Sukia split and turned into DJ Me DJ You, hence the title change from 'Feelin' Free'. We never did get a remix back from them.

Kenji Eno was a maverick games developer from Japan who created the computer game 'D'. He sadly passed away at the young age of 42. Co-incidentally we both shared the exact same birthday although I didn't know this at the time I accepted the remix offer.

There is a version on video and laserdisc with a video cut by Hexstatic to go along with it although the mix is re-titled 'Club mix' for some reason.

When David Byrne and his engineer heard this for the first time he reportedly said that PC must be crazy to have taken the time to chop up every syllable of the song and then replay it.

There is also an extended 11 minute mix which was created for a Belgian dance company which went unused and is unreleased.