Horner had his first score for the film thrown out by the film's distributor, Tri-Star Pictures. Originally, Horner and Dinner felt an atypical approach to the score would help give the film a "special" feel. So Horner wrote a score with an authentic Irish folk music basis, and in October 1984 this score was recorded at the Record Plant in West Hollywood. Several musicians were flown in from Ireland and England to play authentic Irish instruments, such as the fife, tin whistle, Bodhran drums, Hammer Dulcimer, Bagpipe and Mandolin. In addition, veteran studio musicians Tommy Tedesco on guitar, Dorothy Remsen on harp and Emil Richards with additional percussion, rounded out the ensemble.

Although only nine cues were to make up the score, the music truly did give the film a unique sound. The music was much like the kind of Irish folk music the Chieftans perform and this proved to be an effective contrast to the scenes of the Catholic schoolboys and their various antics onscreen. Director Dinner was thrilled with both the approach to the score and the score itself, and he and Horner felt they'd come up with something special.

However, the powers-that-be at Tri-Star felt the music too unique and demanded the film be rescored with a more traditional, classical score. In fact, they wanted specific Mozart music to be utilized. Horner was quite disapointed to have his original Irish score rejected, but was at least happy to be given a second chance rather than being replaced by another composer, as often happens when scores are rejected.

So, in mid-November the second score was recorded at Paramount Studios with a more traditional orchestra of 50 players (primarily a large string section plus flute, oboe, clarinets, bassoons, a few horns, and simple percussion). Horner ended up adapting Mozart's Magic Flute Overture for most of the score, plus a cue utilizing Bach's Brandeburg Concerto No. 2 and a couple of original compositions of the classical variety. Horner and Dinner seemed very depressed at the re-scoring sessions I attended, and very obviously felt this second approach couldn't compare to the first.

But the story didn't end there. Just weeks before the final release of the film in February 1985, a "compromise" of sorts was arranged. The classical score Horner and Dinner disliked was dumped and a third score was recorded. This time the original cues Horner composed for the first version were re-orchestrated. The traditional Irish instruments were eliminated and re-assigned to more traditional instruments, especially saxophone. Some changes in the film itself were made since the first sessions and one of Horner's cues was replaced by a vintage 1960's pop song (Dinner was asked by Tri-Star to squeeze as many 60's pop tunes as possible for eventual release on LP; and in fact that album is now in release featureing no Horner music whatsoever, only the commercialized "oldies" rock and roll--an annoylingly frequent trend in big label soundtracks these days).

Since Heaven Help Us, Horner has scored Ron Howard's new fantasy, Cocoon as well as a new comedy called Volunteers which stars Tom Hanks and John Candy, directed by Nicolas Meyer, with whom Horner worked on Star Trek II.