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Interesting theme tunes

Started by Replies From View, June 26, 2022, 11:14:15 PM

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Brundle-Fly


jamiefairlie

Quote from: Ascent on June 27, 2022, 02:26:44 PMThe original version of The Bill was always an interesting one as it is in 7/4 time, which gives it a nice feel that makes it fill like you are always in the middle of a drum fill.


I once met the drummer Charlie Morgan, who co-composed and played on the theme tune, when he was doing demonstrations at a music show. He had broken his foot and had his leg in a full cast up to the knee. He still played six shows a day, getting to the drums on crutches and using his broken foot on the hi-hat pedal. Crazy.

If I remember rightly the synth lead line wasn't played on a keyboard, it was done using an Akai EWI which is an electronic saxophone that you use to control a synth via MIDI. I always though this really added to the expressiveness of it. I always thought it sounded a bit stilted in later re-recored versions.

Of course in the end they did the theme tune again and converted it to 4/4 time robbing it of all its uniqueness. I think Bill Bailey ended up putting it into Room 101.

That's not the original.

DJ Bob Hoskins

#32
Loved this one from the moment I first heard it in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. It's best known as the theme from The Money Programme:


Another one I have always adored is the theme from Taxi. I was never really a fan of the show but it always felt indescribably soothing when the opening credits appeared on late night TV while I was half-asleep on the sofa.




* I actually much prefer the fuzzy old recording on the TV intro version (especially paired with the 70's New York visuals), but YouTube won't let me embed that version so here's a direct link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07tYdd7drSE



ProvanFan

The joyous yodelling coda of the Sweet Valley High theme does it for me, lads.


ProvanFan

I'll never get to sleep now after that. Fucking buzzing.

The Innes Book Of Records theme (Series 2-3) is quite a fascinating composition, simultaneously melancholic and haunting but with a definite sinister edge.


The Moomins theme by Graeme Miller and Steve Shill. One of those pieces of music that feels so integral to the otherwordly atmosphere of the series that you feel like it must've been there from the start, but was in fact only present in the UK dub, on which the Producer gave two Leeds art students free reign to do whatever they wanted.


gilbertharding


Vision On (children's tv for deaf people)



The Strange World of Gurney Slade (Anthony Newley vehicle) - also incidental music for Vision On.

neveragain

I find this intensely atmospheric, evoking the heat of the desert, being drunk then hungover and mixing those factors into some sort of purgatory.

https://youtu.be/oCPXWTndRZc
Wake In Fright OST

idunnosomename

Quote from: bgmnts on June 26, 2022, 11:25:53 PM


The Simpsons just feels like nothing i've heard in a theme tune and sometimes it feels like it's just discordant and all over the place but it isn't. Every time I hear it I try to highlight a different instrument every time.
This is a great run through of the theme
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/periods-genres/film-tv/the-simpsons-theme-tune-epic-symphonic-masterpiece/

It's all over the place in that it's constantly and abruptly shifting key. Who knows if Elfman did it on purpose but that makes it quite convenient to chop sections out for the episode run time as it doesnt really matter what runs into what.

It's so familiar you forget it but it's so funny that opening choir of three syllables is a fifth with a tritone in the centre. Immediately sets up that this is going to be a weird tune

famethrowa

Quote from: idunnosomename on June 28, 2022, 11:57:04 AMIt's all over the place in that it's constantly and abruptly shifting key. Who knows if Elfman did it on purpose but that makes it quite convenient to chop sections out for the episode run time as it doesnt really matter what runs into what.

It's so familiar you forget it but it's so funny that opening choir of three syllables is a fifth with a tritone in the centre. Immediately sets up that this is going to be a weird tune

Marvellous as it is, I think we can be sure that most of it was by accident and luck and collaboration. Elfman's little demo tune got sent through a transcriber, then a copyist, then an arranger, then various musicians, producers and editors and onto tv. Plus that famous opening tritone is a pretty decent rip of "Meet George Jetson!".

Ascent

Quote from: waste of chops on June 27, 2022, 07:40:52 PMThere's an even earlier version without the lead:

Wow, this is great. Love the bits with all the arpeggios.

Edit because I can't do quotes properly it seems.

Ascent

Quote from: jamiefairlie on June 28, 2022, 02:01:18 AMThat's not the original.

Yeah I went through a load and couldn't find the original, this was the earliest I could find. Have you got a link to the original? I would love the hear it again.

Norton Canes

Syd Dale's glorious Marching There And Back, theme to 70's BBC children's movie quiz Screen Test. Soundtrack to a procession of all Hieronymus Bosch's demons and devils. Those drums!


Lordofthefiles

"what's wrong with being sexy?"


TheGingerAlien

Theme from "get on the amphetamines, stat":

Someone's nicked me bloody boat outro:

Tony Tony Tony

Danny Baker got weeks out of trying to identify what instrument takes the lead on this...


And he still didn't get it.

famethrowa

Quote from: TheGingerAlien on June 28, 2022, 04:37:52 PMSomeone's nicked me bloody boat outro:


That's funny, the opening titles had Local Hero-style guitar noodling in the middle, and this version has Local Hero-style saxophone noodling in the middle! Spirit of the times I guess

gilbertharding

Quote from: famethrowa on June 28, 2022, 11:06:45 PMThat's funny, the opening titles had Local Hero-style guitar noodling in the middle, and this version has Local Hero-style saxophone noodling in the middle! Spirit of the times I guess

Is this the same spirit which gave us the end credits tune to Ray-era Minder?

gilbertharding

Quote from: Tony Tony Tony on June 28, 2022, 05:20:22 PMDanny Baker got weeks out of trying to identify what instrument takes the lead on this...


And he still didn't get it.


Wilfully refused to get it, more like. Any answer which suggested 'it's more than one instrument, and an echo chamber' was dismissed.

DrGreggles

Like his 'Pulling Muscles by Squeeze is the only song where the vocals and music start together' - the answer is irrelevant, it's all about the content it creates.

gilbertharding

Quote from: DrGreggles on June 29, 2022, 11:23:41 AMLike his 'Pulling Muscles by Squeeze is the only song where the vocals and music start together' - the answer is irrelevant, it's all about the content it creates.

Oh, aye. I guess his charm's worn off for me a bit these days.

Sebastian Cobb

Soul Train deserves a mention just for how they changed it as tastes changed. From funk to disco to electro-funk to electro/hip-hop to neo soul


I downloaded some best of dvd's a while ago and it is an amazing time capsule, they left the sponsored ads in which are great:

TheMonk

Chorlton And The Wheelies. Unsettling and I'm not quite sure why.

Ascent

Quote from: DJ Bob Hoskins on June 28, 2022, 02:05:30 AMLoved this one from the moment I first heard it in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. It's best known as the theme from The Money Programme:



Those horns are absolute filth. Love it.

Ascent

Jamie and the Magic Torch was always an interesting one for me. Moody piano, cat noises, ambient guitar, "sleep well Jamie", then suddenly Supergrass piano, kerrang guitar chords and we're off down the helter skelter faster and faster towards cuckoo land!


Even now the ambient opening bit is the music that goes through my head when I'm awake at night and everybody else is asleep in bed (I used to work nightshifts).

As kids, my brother and I were so in love with this theme tune and its greatness, we were convinced it MUST have been written by Paul McCartney (possibly because of the helter skelter reference?) and that as he was such great mates with Pete Townsend, it MUST have been him doing his windmill guitar party piece for the crunchy guitar chords.

With hindsight we probably should have just used our ears and realised it doesn't sound like McCartney in the slightest. Jury's still out on Pete Townsend (insert joke here).

We were also convinced that it was Brian May playing the guitar solo in the Red Dwarf theme (series 3 onwards), so much so that when my brother interviewed him for an unrelated project years later, he asked him afterwards "just to be sure". He said it wasn't him (obviously) but then they did then talk about Starfleet for ages.

Still an amazing bit of guitar though.


buzby

#55
Bit of a niche one this, but the library track used for Granada's Night Time idents in the early 90s.
It's 'Unseen Danger' by Steve Gray from the Bruton 'Menace' album, and was also used on The Professionals and Prisoner: Cell Block H.

Another Bruton library track, Francis Monkman's The Achievements Of Man, was used as the theme for Johnny Ball's Think Again:
(this was an unashamed ripoff of Pulstar by Vangelis).

DJ Bob Hoskins

Quote from: Ascent on June 29, 2022, 02:11:48 PMThose horns are absolute filth. Love it.

Right? It sounds like it belongs in a British spy thriller series from the 60's.

DJ Bob Hoskins

Quote from: Ascent on June 29, 2022, 02:42:02 PMJamie and the Magic Torch was always an interesting one for me. Moody piano, cat noises, ambient guitar, "sleep well Jamie", then suddenly Supergrass piano, kerrang guitar chords and we're off down the helter skelter faster and faster towards cuckoo land!

Loved that when I was a kid.

This one has always stayed with me. It's ridiculously catchy, and I find it both hauntingly sweet and strangely melancholic:



Ascent

Quote from: DJ Bob Hoskins on June 30, 2022, 02:09:44 PMLoved that when I was a kid.

This one has always stayed with me. It's ridiculously catchy, and I find it both hauntingly sweet and strangely melancholic:



Oh that's lovely! Could listen to a whole song of that.
I've just looked it up, it's by Mike Batt. Of course!

DJ Bob Hoskins

Quote from: Ascent on June 30, 2022, 05:24:50 PMOh that's lovely! Could listen to a whole song of that.
I've just looked it up, it's by Mike Batt. Of course!

Well fuck my hat, I didn't know that! Although it makes sense that it's the same person who wrote Bright Eyes (and The Wombles theme!)


Quote from: buzby on June 30, 2022, 12:00:38 PMBit of a niche one this, but the library track used for Granada's Night Time idents in the early 90s.

That's fantastic. I have vague memories of seeing these idents on UTV back in the day. I think this was the slot where they showed stuff like The Hitman and Her? Was there a similar ident featuring a black cat, or am I Mandela-ing my hauntological memory banks?


Obvious one this, but Brian Eno + eerie visuals = perfection: