Interesting theme tunes

[Replies From View]

A thread about TV and film theme tunes that you find musically intriguing.

I'm not a musician myself but I do find music interesting, and recently I've stumbled upon two videos that fit this subject.


The Terminator:

Transformers:

Any more you can think of?

[bgmnts]

Very cliche answer but i've always found the Simpsons theme tune quite interesting and the Quantum Leap theme tune interesting.

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.

Quantum Leap just sounds weird to me.

[Glebe]

Stewart Copeland has produced some memorably quirky/catchy themes:

[Beep Cleep Chimney]

[studpuppet]

This one has a lot more going on than you'd expect. There's even a slight ska-like element to it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

[Sebastian Cobb]

[Jittlebags]

A lot of the ITC stuff had some great music. The Protectors being a great example. I also quite like the Jason King one.

[Sebastian Cobb]

[Sebastian Cobb]

it's "like the theme tune more than the show" for me clive!

[Sebastian Cobb]

[Rizla]

it's "like the theme tune more than the show" for me clive!

And it's "what the fuck even is that show, that it contains horses is as much as I can tell you" for me!

[Sebastian Cobb]

Not a theme as such, in show composition but christ!

also of course

[Glebe]

The On the Record theme was a clever blend of 'hard-hitting news' and 'Here we go now off to sunny Spain!' cheeriness. Cracking croc sequence too!

[Brundle-Fly]

.

[Brundle-Fly]

[Ray Travez]

This one has a lot more going on than you'd expect. There's even a slight ska-like element to it.

you can actually listen to that one. It doesn't try too hard. There's an unusual chord structure- you'd expect the first chord to be a minor.

You can tell it was played live by a band, because they almost lose the timing at points, but it stays together.

[Glebe]

That's great!

Tales of the Unexpected's theme is a wonderfully unsettling mixture of joy and moodiness:

The Caribbean-set episode 'The Boy Who Talked with Animals' ends with a steel band version of the theme, think its the only time the theme tune was altered:

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

The off-kilter circus vibe of the Withnail and I theme tune perfectly sums up the title characters.

[Astronaut Omens]

This one has a lot more going on than you'd expect. There's even a slight ska-like element to it.

This was the first one I thought of too, it's absolutely fascinating. Two things that make it very moreish are the way it wrong-foots you by having that squelchy melody line in the first few seconds that then gets dropped and doesn't come back, so it takes you a moment to register that the higher synth line is the main melody and not a backing bit, and the contrast between the weirdly muted filter-sounding mix of the opening half followed by the really clear way the brass instruments come in about halfway through.

[Astronaut Omens]

Love it! The way that there is a straightforward piano piece somewhere buried in the collage there reminds me a bit of the guitar tune that's been swamped with effects in the theme to the fictional TV series "It's the Mind" in the Monty Python Deja Vu sketch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WweFVl9g5gk

[Glebe]

The off-kilter circus vibe of the Withnail and I theme tune perfectly sums up the title characters.

One of my favourite movie themes.

[studpuppet]

Must be a Ronnie Corbett thing. This one is also way better than what it was used for:

[Ascent]

The 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.

[Brundle-Fly]

The 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.

The other composer being Andy Pask out of the Einstein A-Go-Go hitmakers, Landscape, pop trivia kids!

[Brundle-Fly]

[Glebe]

This one has a lot more going on than you'd expect. There's even a slight ska-like element to it.

Not actually written by Ronnie Hazlehurst of course as is often assumed, but by Gaynor Colbourn and Hugh Wisdom apparently. Hazlehurst merely did the conducting.

Think there was a video on YT of Colbourn performing it solo on acoustic but I cannae find it now. Nevertheless here's that Psychmagic remix and Matt Berry cover:

[Shaxberd]

The theme tune and opening titles of Airwolf are much, much better than the show itself. All synth and gated reverb, so profoundly of the 80s that it sounds like a parody of itself.

I was going to add the intro to K-9 and Company here as well as another in the same vein, but on review it's terrible musically and clearly all done on one person's Casio; the joy is all in the visuals, which are pure Darkplace.

[Glebe]

Blake's 7's theme is like The Onedin Line music in space:

[waste of chops]

The 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.

There's an even earlier version without the lead:

Datasette's cover of it is pretty great.