LOS ANGELES -- For Randy Newman, it's a familiar tune. The score and songs he wrote for Disney's The Princess and the Frog will probably earn him multiple Oscar nominations.

"I'd like to talk about the Academy for about half an hour, if you don't mind," he says.

Maybe -- but he won't single out one song over another as the likeliest awards contender.

"I have no idea. I like Down in New Orleans quite a bit. The waltz turned out very well. But I have no preference or expectation. I had fairly explicit instructions. It's what I asked for. You know, the type of a song is almost suggested by the assignment itself. It was obvious that (firefly) Ray is Cajun country and that's the kind of thing that he would get ... I often gave them back what they put on the page, essentially."

The result is a musical gumbo that includes jazz, Dixieland, blues and gospel.

"It does embrace a lot of styles. It's 1925 also. Luckily, I love the music that was happening. I love Cajun stuff and the jazz of the period, so I took to it well. It interested me. Even if it hadn't interested me, I would have done it. But it was a fairly painless experience writing the songs."

The 66-year-old composer, whose scores include Toy Story and Cars, claimed the best original song Oscar for Monsters, Inc. after being nominated 15 times without a win.