Newman said, 'The rare opportunity of writing music for a movie about the making of Mary Poppins was impossible to ignore. The fact that it could provide emotional content in relief of the struggles that the Sherman brothers and Walt Disney endured was reason enough to take on the challenge. Like the story itself, the music is at times joyous and hopeful and other times, full of despair and nagging regret. All by way of England and America in 1961, with stops along the way to rural Australia in 1906. What more could anyone ask for...?'