How Bret McKenzie wrote an Oscar-winning song (+ video, photos)

Kiwi comedian Bret McKenzie has spilled more details about how he wrote his Academy Award-winning song Man or Muppet, saying he was trying to mimic a power ballad like All By Myself.

The Flight of the Conchords star won the Oscar for Best Original Song earlier this week, after beating out his only other contender Rio, from Real in Rio.

He told music website NPR he wanted his song, which appeared in recent movie The Muppets and is sung by Jason Segel, to be as "dramatic" as possible.

"I really wanted to do a power-ballad tune, and really wanted to get it as dramatic as I possibly could get it to be," he told www.npr.org.

"Both [Without You and All By Myself] have a very similar feel, and I wanted to get this Man or Muppet song to be one of those. That is what I found really funny."

McKenzie, who says he will be writing new Flight of the Conchords songs with Jemaine Clement later this year before beginning work on their film, said the Muppet's script had already been written when he was approached about writing the soundtrack.

"For Man or Muppet, they wanted a song about being a man or a Muppet," he told NPR.

"And (director) James (Bobin) had this visual idea that the man would see a reflection of himself as a Muppet, and the Muppet would see a reflection of himself as a man.

"So within the song, it needed to incorporate some sort of echo-y idea, so you go between the two characters within the melody."

Using the word "puppet" in the song was one of many rules McKenzie was forced to adhere to.

"Early on, I was going to get 'puppet' in there, but you can't do that," he said.

"Muppets are real. So then I was riffing as to how I could get that melody and those lyrics to flip back and forth, so that's why I ended up rhyming Muppet with Muppet and man with man."

Watch the video for Man or Muppet:

- Herald online