Favourite TV Themes

[Brundle-Fly]

My contribution to this thread must be: Accroche-ti Caroline, aka the theme to Vision On. Sorry I'm posting on my phone so linking to it is really really difficult but hopefully you can find it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0P9-gskYpk

The echoey harpsichord I imagine Mad Comic's Spy Vs Spy guys scuttling about.

[paruses]

Now THAT is a tune I remember hearing recently as incidental music in a couple of episodes of The Sweeney.

Episodes Golden Fleece and Trojan Bus apparently. The ones with the Australians. Does ring a bell - will have to track them down.

[Jerzy Bondov]

I know it's Thomas Newman and it's multi-award winning but the theme from 'Six Feet Under' is just superb - a perfect mix of absurdity and melancholy, somehow managing to sound reassuring and unsettling at the same time. JUST LIKE DEATH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5JkGY1qC8Y

I love these titles. I never skipped them.

I used to think the most exciting TV theme was Stingray, to the point that nothing that happens in the actual show could ever come close. The fucking drums man. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN THE NEXT HALF HOUR. Holy Christ what is going to happen in the next half hour? It still gets me pumped right up. Wasn't really that arsed about Stingray itself.

Now I know the truth, which is that the most exciting TV theme is Tank! from Cowboy Bebop. The show lives up to the theme as well. Insanely good.

[the]

I used to think the most exciting TV theme was Stingray, to the point that nothing that happens in the actual show could ever come close. The fucking drums man. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN THE NEXT HALF HOUR. Holy Christ what is going to happen in the next half hour? It still gets me pumped right up. Wasn't really that arsed about Stingray itself.

Similarly, I'm not arsed about the main Thunderbirds theme, but the fast bit at the start is proper.

[Glebe]

The Late Late Show.

Alan Parker My World (The Free Life)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMKibbJS-Gw

That's great!

[MiddleRabbit]

Ski Sunday.

Skiing's for cunts, naturally, but The music's great.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rQJsTsJrIqw

[Brundle-Fly]

The sultry charms of Peter Barkworth? 

Telford's Change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGBjN80tPog

[Neomod]

Sounding not unlike a Kevin Ayers/Robert Wyatt outtake, it's . . .

Pigeon Street
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYTDtnFQUyc

Get On Board, Get On Board, Get On Board with ...

The Double Deckers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAKobLjH3tA

Pub quiz questions a go go with the presence of Aswad's Brindsley Forde and horse killer/Spooks boss Peter Firth.

Lovely use of Beach Boys-esque bass harmonica there.

[famethrowa]

Can someone tell me the name of the Graham & The Colonel theme? It's a UK library piece but I forgot the name. Heard at the start here for a few seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6t9vcVpsT8

[famethrowa]

On the same topic, here's a favourite, the Australian channel 9 cricket theme. The sound of many young summers on an 80s TV set. Always blows my hat off to remember it was created by the drummer from the Shadows, who was probably not thinking of Kim Hughes and Kapil Dev and Richard Hadlee when he wrote it. Is it known in the UK?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UODCaKzu9kg

[Neomod]

Can someone tell me the name of the Graham & The Colonel theme? It's a UK library piece but I forgot the name. Heard at the start here for a few seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6t9vcVpsT8

Keith Mansfield's Light and Tunefull
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjau56uekJA

[famethrowa]

Keith Mansfield's Light and Tunefull
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjau56uekJA

Thank you! No holds barred, no beg your pardons!

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aw!

[Brundle-Fly]

Crystal Tipps & Alistair

Music that aspires to be spry, airy, magical, yet the neo-Baroque jazz approach and,1970's homegrown production makes it so wonderfully taut, claustrophobic, and mildly sinister.

Love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7qfm1dHTSk

[Jockice]

Monkey fuckin bass on that

Please Sir fuckin drums on that

Roobarb and Custard fuckin fuzz synth on that

Contains two of those I finally entered this thread to post. I've never seen Monkey.

[olliebean]

How could I forget Terrahawks? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB1XLbiISm0

And the full orchestral version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa2loiHUl9g

[Jockice]

Has anyone mentioned The Goodies yet?

[non capisco]

Has anyone mentioned The Goodies yet?

Mention them twice more and he appears.

[Sonny_Jim]

The theme to RAC Rally aka Propaganda by Jewelled is a banger.  Never realised it had words.

EDIT:  Also the theme tune to 'The Racoons' always made me feel sad, not sure why.

[Darles Chickens]

How could I forget Terrahawks? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB1XLbiISm0

And the full orchestral version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa2loiHUl9g

And the B side of the 12" single, a nice piece of music with a few nods to Holst.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M-RTX4Av1M

EDIT:  Also the theme tune to 'The Racoons' always made me feel sad, not sure why.

The end theme is a pure slice of the 80s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usFFKNRB2z8

The Raccoons had a full soundtrack album released, with the songs written by its creator Kevin Gillis, and mostly performed by Lisa Lougheed.  It's a shame she never really made it big as I always thought she had a unique and beautiful voice.

[Neomod]

aka Jewel/Duel by Propaganda a banger.

FTFY

[Jockice]

Animal Magic! Never heard the full version before but this has a bit of a Singing In The Rain feel about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQMOUDr6hp0

[Brundle-Fly]

Not a theme tune but C4 Schools Programmes interlude music that I've not heard in thirty years? Not sure what feelings this evokes. Sitting in my bedsit eating baked beans?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SViPuJPEYqo

[jamiefairlie]

Too many to list but today it's ....

Keith Mansfield The Big Match (Young Scene)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2bNJmGsYpc

It was my answering machine background music back in the 90's[nb]BRITPOP![/nb] (pre mobiles).

and

Alan Parker My World (The Free Life)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMKibbJS-Gw

Really capturing the ennui of watching schools tv there.

That Alan parker tune is one of my favourites. In case you were wondering, he's not that Alan Parker of move fame, this one was born in Matlock, Derbyshire, and was an in-demand session guitarist, playing on  Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and the Walker Brothers' "No Regrets.

[jamiefairlie]

Take Three Girls Opening Credits

https://youtu.be/JtYpJ8aqa2Y



Pentangle's Light Flight was actually originally written as the theme tune for this show. These opening credits are quintessentially 1969 and this was what the world looked like when I first started to notice and form memories, so this has a massive Proustian effect on me as I can vividly remember seeing the world when it looked, sounded and felt like this.

[jamiefairlie]

Today

https://youtu.be/RsY8l0Jg3lY

Cheating a wee bit here but an instrumental version of this served as the theme tune to the London based Today show. In fact the famous Pistols/Grundy clip has them dancing to that very version right at the end.

The Association were an American sunshine pop band from California. This was their second number 1 in the US but they never seemed to trouble the UK chart, highlighting how musically separate the two countries used to be before the internet erased all barriers. It's one of the great pleasures of the current age to discover that band called "Spanky and Our Gang" were massive in the US

[beanheadmcginty]

The theme to RAC Rally aka Propaganda by Jewelled is a banger.  Never realised it had words.

EDIT:  Also the theme tune to 'The Racoons' always made me feel sad, not sure why.

I can imagine Kenny Loggins' lawyers' ears pricking up when they first heard that.

[Darles Chickens]

Also a cheat because it's a radio theme, and also an actual real song, but I used to love hearing the theme tune to Sport on 4 on Saturday mornings on Radio 4 when I was a kid.

https://youtu.be/RO5NZMwfTDg

[MiddleRabbit]

Take Three Girls Opening Credits

https://youtu.be/JtYpJ8aqa2Y



Pentangle's Light Flight was actually originally written as the theme tune for this show. These opening credits are quintessentially 1969 and this was what the world looked like when I first started to notice and form memories, so this has a massive Proustian effect on me as I can vividly remember seeing the world when it looked, sounded and felt like this.

Different lyrics and arrangement on the record, but I really like the TV theme.  Pentangle were great, especially at this time of year. 

[buzby]

Now I know the truth, which is that the most exciting TV theme is Tank! from Cowboy Bebop. The show lives up to the theme as well. Insanely good.

This live version of Tank! by the Jazz Lab Orchestra with teenage prodigy Senri Kawaguchi on drums is something else.

The tune itself owes a debt to all those 60s Us detective/police series with jazzy theme tunes, such as  Lalo Schifrin's theme for Mission:Impossible and  Henry Mancini's jazz-funk workout for The Streets Of San Francisco.

On a more obscure British note, I've always been partial to Val Bennett's The Russians Are Coming, the reggae reworking of Take Five which was used as the theme for Tim Hunkin's The Secret Life Of Machines on Channel 4.

[jobotic]

Is Film '84 (etc)a special version of I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free by Nina Simone or just the intro?

No sound here so can't look it up.

Anyway it's good.