How Steve Martin’s Epic ‘Pickwick Triplets’ Patter Song From ‘Only Murders’ Created Lyrics Like ‘A Diaper Full of Criminal Intent’
This season of Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” had its share of dramatic peaks, but one of the most memorable wasn’t the revelation of the killer — it was a cleverly crafted song that playfully accuses three infants of murder. With lyrics like “a diaper full of criminal intent” delivered with flair by Steve Martin, the patter song, “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” is both a humorous nod to the campy charm of musical theater and a poignant subplot for Martin’s character, the fading star Charles Haden Savage.
The question loomed: Would Savage reclaim the spotlight with lines like “Which little brat made mommy go splat?” or fade further into the eccentric world of life at the Arconia?
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This tension, coupled with the show’s final performance, likely contributed to its impressive haul of 21 Emmy nominations, including nods for outstanding comedy series, outstanding original music and lyrics and an acting nomination for Martin himself. But how did series co-creator John Hoffman conjure up this darkly humorous song about babies committing murder? The creators behind this epic musical moment joined Variety’s “Making A Scene,” presented by HBO, to explain.
“It came to me in the shower. I literally just thought, ‘Oh, which of the Pickwick triplets did it?’” Hoffman recalls. “The constable character, played by Steve in the play, was on a mission to uncover which of these little baby triplets could have killed their mother — which is preposterous, but delightfully preposterous in my mind.”
Energized by this idea, Hoffman rushed into the writer’s room, declaring, “‘This is the song. It’s going to be called ‘Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?’ We need to get [composers] Benj [Pasek] and Justin [Paul] on the phone right away.’”
The call (thanks to a mutual friend also in the writer’s room) resulted in a collaboration with the legendary songwriting team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, setting the stage for an unforgettable moment. Hoffman, along with Pasek, Paul and Shaiman, take reveal how this epic moment in “Only Murders” was brought to life.
The hallmark of a great patter song is a fast tempo paired with a swift sequence of rhythmic patterns, where each syllable of the text aligns with a single note. Lyrical nightmares that will live in the halls of tongue-twister infamy include Stephen Sondheim’s “Your Fault,” “Chicago’s” “We Both Reached for the Gun” and just about every third song from “The Music Man.”
“Many years ago, at one of Marty’s Short’s now legendary Christmas parties that used to be so much fun out in L.A., he would make me push the piano out to make me look desperate,” says Shaiman. “And then he would jump on top of it, and he would hold like a spoon for a microphone, and he’d become the master of ceremonies. And year after year, people started preparing. One year, Steve Martin said, ‘I would now like to sing the opening number to ‘The Music Man.’”
“It’s very hard,” Paul interjects, underscoring the difficulty.
“Yeah, for seven people to do! And he got up and did it perfectly, the whole thing,” Shaiman continues.
Confident in Martin’s ability to master the rapid-fire patter, Pasek and Paul were brought into the “Only Murders in the Building” writer’s room, flying out to Los Angeles to merge the creative energies of television and theater — all in service of crafting a brilliant plot.
“We loved being in the writer’s room because they were really trying to create this fictional musical, and we got to be a part of that. We got to weigh in on our Broadway experiences and talk about how songs could function,” says Pasek.
“There was real reciprocity there,” he continues, “because usually in a musical theater world, you’re sitting just by yourself or with a dedicated collaborator; you don’t get the experience of getting a whole collective of people who are all dedicated to cracking the story together. That model of seeing how TV works and seeing all these people dedicated to telling one story but using all their brain power to come up with the best ideas possible became inspiring for how we wanted to create this from a musical theater standpoint too.”
After a season of false starts trying to launch the tricky ditty, it’s during the eighth episode, titled “Sitzprobe” (which is the first official rehearsal that unites the cast and orchestra together), in which Savage finally lands the tongue twister on stage in front of the entire cast and crew.
“Our job was to try to write something that is as difficult to sing as possible, and that it really should trip the tongue and that should be something really, really hard to do in one take,” Pasek says. “That works to our advantage in terms of the plot, because really the question is, can this character pull it off? And for several episodes, he can’t. It gives us something to really root for over the course of the season.”
He continues, “The prospect of TV folks saying, ‘OK, the big payoff of literally eight episodes is going to be whether or not a character can perform a musical theater patter song.’ That’s a dream come true.”
Martin’s first reaction to the idea of funneling a character breakthrough while plowing through verse after verse of tongue-twisters was succinct. Martin, who is known for his one-sentence emails, simply responded, “Well, my goodness, this is quite a song,” followed by another email that asked, “Am I going to have to do this whole thing live? I’m not sure I can do that.”
“Many other one-sentence, anxiety-ridden emails [followed], and they were delightful,” Hoffman says with a laugh. “Then he got to work as he does. All I can say about that is his wife, his lovely wife, Anne, I saw her after a couple of months of him having had that song, and I said, ‘How is Steve doing?’ and I didn’t have to say the word ‘song,’ and Anne said, ‘Let’s just say, I know every lyric.’”
As for the recording itself, all three songwriters (despite their Oscar and Tony accolades) admit they were still star-struck to partner with the “Only Murders” cast, which included Martin Short, Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep, for Season 3.
“[It was a] humbling thing for us to be around a legend like Steve, who’s so willing to put in so much work and humble himself getting in the recording studio and do take after take after take after take of the song and take notes from us,” says Paul. “The really cool thing is the way this was set up, that show feels very much like theater camp, the way that they shoot it over in Queens. They built a little recording studio where the dressing rooms are. Everyone was sauntering in and out as Steve was recording. Marty would come in, sit down on the couch and be like, ‘Again!’ ‘No! Terrible! What are you doing?’ It was just this amazing environment where everyone was having fun and razzing each other.”
After the recording, Martin would later have to re-create his “Triplette” soliloquy in front of the entire cast on stage in a final moment of triumph for both the viewers and the actor.
“The audience has been along for the ride, and you’re kind of breathless in that rehearsal setting, and you get to see him slam this thing like only Steve Martin could in front of a theater that was actually filled with Meryl Streep and Martin Short and everyone else who had finished their work, who just sat in the theater that night to watch him do this over and over again,” Hoffman says.
“It was one of the great nights I’ve ever had doing anything creatively — watching Steve Martin just slam that sucker home over and over again.
Additional reporting by Variety’s Mark Hayes.
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