Benj Pasek and Justin Paul Say Steve Martin 'Knocked It Out of the Park' With ONLY MURDERS Patter Song

In a new interview as part of Deadline's Sound and Screen Television, Tony-award-winning songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul praised Steve Martin's performance singing "Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It" from Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building.

"He’s an incredible musician so it sort of tracks,” Paul said of Martin's performance.

The song, written in collaboration with Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, was helmed for the in-universe musical Death Rattle Dazzle starring Martin's character, Charles-Haden Savage. The number is a patter song, which Savage struggles to master in the series. 

Pasek admitted the challenges of singing a patter song, saying “We have tried to do it and failed many times.”

Complications with the production schedule led to a limited time in which Martin himself could perform the number: "A lot of it is very real because there was a two-hour window and he actually performed it and knocked it out of the park. So I think everybody’s actually surprised that Steve Martin nailed it," Pasek said.

Paul recalled asking the showrunner John Hoffman to create a writer's room for musical theatre writers: "We said, 'Could we get together a group of some of our favorite songwriters and all create this fake, insane musical together?'

The final musical theatre lineup included Pasek & Paul, Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, Michael R. Jackson and Sara Bareilles.

Read more at Deadline, where the full video of the interview is also available. 

Only Murders in the Building follows three residents inside an exclusive Upper West Side apartment building. Following a grisly death, Charles, Oliver, and Mabel suspect murder and must employ their precise knowledge of true crime to investigate the truth. As they record a podcast of their own to document the case, the three unravel the complex secrets of the building which stretch back years. In Season 3 of the show, the characters produced a Broadway musical directed by Martin Short's Oliver Putnam. A new season of the show will be hitting Hulu on August 27.

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are the Tony Award-winning songwriters behind such shows as Dear Evan Hansen, Dogfight, and A Christmas Story. For the screen, they wrote songs for La La Land, The Greatest Showman, and Spirited. They also contributed new songs for Disney's upcoming live-action remake of Snow White starring Rachel Zegler.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos