Tasked with writing the script of a Pirate-themed attraction, what would you do? In 1967, Xavier Atencio (known as ‘X’ to his Disney colleagues) created a song that would not only delight guests in four corners of the world for over 40 years, but make a hugely successful transfer to movie legend. Jérémie Noyer met the credited Disney Legend to talk rascals and scoundrels, villains and knaves…

Born in Walsenburg, Colorado in 1920, X moved to Los Angeles in 1937, where he attended Chouinard Art Institute. Instructors gently prodded the shy, young artist to submit his portfolio to The Walt Disney Studios. The next year, he startled neighbors when he ran past their homes, from the Company’s Hyperion Studio to his aunt’s house, shouting “I got a job at Disney!”

Within three years, X was promoted to assistant animator on Fantasia until World War II sent him to England with the U.S. Army Air Corps. By 1945, X returned to the Studios to work on animated short subjects and in 1953, he received his first screen credit for Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, which won an Academy Award.

In 1965, Walt asked X to stretch his talents by relocating to Walt Disney Imagineering, then called WED (Walter Elias Disney) Enterprises, to assist in the creation of the Primeval World diorama for Disneyland, which is where Jérémie Noyer begins his voyage…

How did you become an Imagineer and, ultimately, one of the creators of Pirates of the Caribbean?

At the time, I was at the [Disney] Studio. Walt got Bill Justice and me to do a short subject on doodles, because he was a great doodler. Every time we had a meeting with Walt, he was always making little drawings on paper, so Walt suggested we do a film on that. Bill and I got to work, and we also had Larry Clemmons, another top storyman, working with us.

We had about three meetings but we just couldn’t come up with anything. So, after the third meeting, I said to Walt: “You know, I don’t think we have any idea of what you want on this.” The next day, he called me off to his office. He looked at me, and he stared at me for a moment. I thought he was going to fire me! But he said “I think you’re right, X. Now is the time. I’ve been wanting to get you over to Imagineering for a long time. Now is the time to go.” So, I packed up my things and went to Imagineering.

I got over there and nobody knew what I was supposed to do. It was three miles from the studio. I went back there every day for lunch, and on the way home I passed the studio, too. I felt terrible because I had been there for 27 years. I had a nice office there whereas at Imagineering I had no place even to hang my hat! After about a month, Walt called me one day and he said “I want you to do the script for Pirates of the Caribbean”. I had never done any scripting before. I had done storyboarding. But I said “All right. Let’s give it a try!”. Walt Disney had an ability of finding in his people talents that we didn’t even know we had ourselves.

I started researching and I got the Treasure Island film out and things like that to get the feeling of pirate jargon. I showed my first scene, that was the Auction scene, to Walt. I said “How’s this” and he said “That’s fine. Keep going.” I kept going, then. Marc Davis and Claude Coats worked out the ride by that time, and they had a model that I could walk through to see what the different scenes were. So, I got each scene and decided what the pirates would be doing or saying in this particular scene. And, at the very last story meeting we had, I suggested to Walt that maybe a song would be good in here…

I had an idea for the lyrics and I delivered the kind of melody I had in mind. I sang the Yo Ho song and he said “Fine. Get George to do the music for it.” George Bruns was our musical director at that time. So, he did the music and I became a songwriter! My career changed very much about that short period — I moved from animation to writing and even songwriting which I think I enjoyed more than anything else. That change in my career was very challenging, and I liked it!

After that, for every show I did for the parks, I would add a song. My association with Buddy (Baker) began at that time, just after Pirates, with Grim Grinning Ghosts. We had a great partnership. We were very good friends, both professionally and socially.

What memories do you have of George Bruns?

George was a very interesting fellow. He did the music for a lot of films and outside of that, he got together with other musicians, including Ward Kimball and Frank Thomas, for jam sessions. They were called the Firehouse Five Plus Two! I worked with him again on the Bear Band Serenade for the Country Bear Jamboree.

When Walt asked you to do the script of Pirates, did he give you some ideas or suggestions?

No, he didn’t. He just left it up to me. Somebody had started a script before I got there. It was a very straight narration. So I added my own pirate act like “Avast there! Ye come seekin’ adventure and salty old pirates, aye?”.

Now you mention it, there is a lot of dialogue in this attraction…

We had mocked-up one scene of the Pirates ride in the back of the building there. It was the Auction scene. We built up a little cart and pushed Walt through it at about the same speed that the boats would be going.

We had noise from one side with the Auctioneer and pirates on the other side of the river and I told him “I’m sorry, I don’t think you’re hearing what these guys are saying,” and he said “Hey X, when you go to a cocktail party, you pick up a little conversation here, another conversation there. Each time people will go through, they’ll find something new.”

Both the first Pirates of the Caribbean film and the attraction mention the fact that the treasure is cursed. How did you come to this idea?

It was just an idea. We hadn’t planned it that way. We had all these treasures and we thought: “why don’t the pirates take it with them?” – That’s because it was cursed! And the writers of the film played on that, too. These guys know where the treasure is but they’re doomed. It was really well done.

Don’t you think this curse is in a way the moral of the attraction?

Yes, I think so. How can you explain the fact that you got down to the bottom of the ride and you find the skeleton pirates? How did they get there? And why? They went down there to find this treasure but they can’t take it away. And at the end of the ride at Disneyland [California], we go back up the ramp. The pirates are now alive. They try to get back up to the top, but they have trouble getting there. So, they won’t ever get to the world of the living!

How did you work with Marc Davis?

Marc was a brilliant storyman and designer. He and I worked very well together. He worked also with Claude Coats. Claude designed the ride and how it would work, and Marc, on the other hand worked on the pirates — what pirate to be used, how they would be dressed, etc. They had already done that when I arrived on the scene, but they were very good to let me do what I wanted to do storywise, telling this story. We all worked very well together.

In addition to the lyrics, you said you imagined the melody of Yo Ho. Do you have any musical training?

None at all. I just hummed a few ideas and George took it from there. With Buddy, I always did the lyrics first and then I gave it to him, like for Grim Grinning Ghosts. He had to make little changes to fit the music, but in most cases it was pretty intact. I’ve always been amazed by him — the great music came out so easily with him!

What is the role of the song within the attraction?

One thing to do is to lighten up the ride and make it fun. I always thought it would be kind of nice to have a song in there that people would be singing or humming when they left the ride. And they actually do that, you know! I remember one time I was down at the beach. There were some kids on a little dingy and they sang the song. That was so nice!

Small World is certainly one of the most remarkable examples of the use of a song within an attraction…

I actually thought about Small World when I suggested a song in the ride. I thought Walt was going to get the Sherman brothers to do it. But to my surprise he said: “Will you do it?” That was a great day in my life! The difference is that in Pirates, they don’t sing the song continuously through the ride. You don’t hear the song until you get to the burning city, beginning with the three fellows singing. Otherwise, there are dialogues only, or dialogues with the theme of the song that goes through there, but no attempt was made to synchronise dialogues with the music.

From what did you draw your inspiration for the lyrics?

I did some research and got all the words that go with pirating: “We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot, we plunder, we rifle, we loot”. It’s difficult when you’re writing a song for a ride like this because there is no beginning and no end, really, and each verse has to stand on its own. You just don’t know exactly when the guest will be coming into the scene. So, you can’t talk specifically about the bombardment scene or the well scene or things like that, because they may be at a different part of the ride.

“We extort and pilfer, we filch and sack. Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho. Maraud and embezzle and even highjack. Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.”: that just makes a general statement about what these guys are doing in there.

Through these lyrics, pirates don’t look like bandits, but rather like children doing silly things…

They’re not really bad guys. They’re pirates, and they’re fun-loving, really. We had a problem at Disneyland: somebody complained about the pirate chasing the women, finding it politically incorrect. But we simply considered that they’re pirates — that’s what they did.

And the music makes them quite likeable guys!

Yes. You know, my wife was a school nurse, and one day, one of the teachers told her “I don’t want my children to listen to that song because it talks about bad things like rape and things like that.” So I got my lyrics and asked: “where do you see that in the lyrics?”… I guess she had just instantly associated pirates to these bad things, but our pirates are not like that!

You also did some of the voices, didn’t you?

Yes. In the Auction scene, I did the pirate up on the bridge. The Captain says “What be I offered for this winsome wench?”, and my character says “Six bottles o’ rum!” Then the Captain answers “I’m not spongin’ for rum! It be gold I’m after!”

I also did the warning in California, which says: “Ye come seekin’ adventure and salty old pirates, aye? Sure ye’ve come to the proper place!” That was just an addition to warn people that they should keep their hands inside the boat, done by the skeleton face. I recorded the main voices, especially with Paul Frees. But later, when we put the ride in, we found things that had to be done. So I said “I’ll try doing the voice” and it sort of worked out.

After that, I used to get people from the company at Imagineering and ask them “Would you like to try a voice?” Sometimes it would work, but sometimes it wouldn’t, some got stage-fright! But most of them were very anxious to do it so they could tell their family: “That’s my voice!” It worked really well.

In 1973, you made a new version of the song for Walt Disney World: Yo Ho became A Parrot’s Life For Me!

The parrot is on the bridge in the Burning Town scene. He’s got a pirate with him and he’s singing. But nobody quite hears that lyric: “Yo ho, yo ho, a parrot’s life for me”, instead of “pirate’s”. It’s just a little gag!

Did you see the new version of the attraction they did recently at Disneyland?

Yes. I think it’s very good. Johnny Depp appears here and there, slotted into the scene. For instance, in the well scene, he’s in the background, sneaking around. Then, he’s in a barrel, and at the end, he’s with all the treasure. I think it was a cute little touch, and a good idea to connect the film with the ride that way. The Imagineers did a good job!

What do you think about the films they made after the attraction?

I’ve seen the first one several times. I thought it was very good, yet a little long. I think they could have cut half an hour. But it’s very exciting. Johnny Depp did a really good job as a pirate. I was very glad that my song was being used in it — I had credit for that, but I had to wait through all those credits to see it, which takes almost forever! Then they didn’t use my song in the second one, so I hope it’ll be back in the third one!

• With greatest thanks to X Atencio.

• You can read Jérémie’s complete interview in Walt’s People – Talking Disney with the Artists Who Knew Him: Volume 7, X-Libris Corporation, edited by Didier Ghez.