Blackadder theme tune smackdown

[madhair60]

to fall in love with boys is weird
especially boys without a dingle

alright Glinner

[Mobbd]

to fall in love with boys is weird
especially boys without a dingle

alright Glinner

True! Fits the episode somewhat though, the prejudice he's up against. "Rather a quack than a duckie, good day!" etc.

[Jerden Cooke]

The best one (I think) is the opening theme for Blackadder II. The one with that Elizabethan woodwind disrupted by noisy electric guitar.

Same guitarist as on the Red Dwarf (series 3 onwards) theme, fans of unnecessary trivia.

Edit but done before I posted: I have made this claim with great confidence in the past but it turns out that it might be the same guitarist (Tom Blades) on both, but the Blackadder II guitarist might actually be Ian Lawes.

Will I post this anyway? Of course!

[Mobbd]

Same guitarist as on the Red Dwarf (series 3 onwards) theme, fans of unnecessary trivia.

Edit but done before I posted: I have made this claim with great confidence in the past but it turns out that it might be the same guitarist (Tom Blades) on both, but the Blackadder II guitarist might actually be Ian Lawes.

Will I post this anyway? Of course!

Cool! Though tbh I hoped it was Goodall himself rocking out with his cocking out. "By jove!"

[Lemming]

to fall in love with boys is weird
especially boys without a dingle

My brother quoted the doctor's disparaging "you've started fancying boys then, have you?" at me when I brought my first boyfriend home, proper spleen-rupturing laugh.

"Ashamed of yourself?"
"Not really, no"
"Bloody hell, I would be."

The wise woman bit always gets me too:
"Kill Bob."
"Never!"
"Kill yourself."
(noise of interested consideration)

[idunnosomename]

Or is that easy for anyone who can read music?

I think he's reading a reversed score, which is obviously not hard to do if you're a sight-reader like him who could basically play anything put in front of him as long as it's not stupidly difficult to finger.

BUT when the film is reversed, it sounds a bit janky. because each note ends loud where it entered in his playthrough, but on the instrument it doesn't really last properly to where it ought to enter in the reversal, in the way it would if you digitally reversed it (real terms are attack and decay, I guess). You could spend more time making it sound more like the original in reverse, probably twin peaks style in imitating reversed recordings.

Regardless it's a good illustration that retrograde in music is not a particularly efficient way of recycling material, and often just sounds like a load of nonsense (but not always... Metallica's Blackened intro, for instance, was written in reverse to what you hear on the record, it just happens to sound cool backwards). But like the myth of subliminal backmasking messages it's basically imperceptible to a casual listener what's going on.

Another observation is that the Red Dwarf theme is just straight major in the intro-verse and then goes melodically off the rails in the refrain ("Fun, Fun, Fun"), while the Blackadder has some prominent "blue notes" in the verses, and the refrain is straight major. but then Howard also does the shove up key changes on the refrain which I think also is a cheeky wink at pop-modernity. more differences than similarities in how they work as tunes imo.

[Mobbd]

My brother quoted the doctor's disparaging "you've started fancying boys then, have you?" at me when I brought my first boyfriend home, proper spleen-rupturing laugh.

"Ashamed of yourself?"
"Not really, no"
"Bloody hell, I would be."

The wise woman bit always gets me too:
"Kill Bob."
"Never!"
"Kill yourself."
(noise of interested consideration)

I used to be able to do the whole wise woman bit. "Yes, the wise woman," etc. I was like that Python-quoting idiot in Sliding Doors.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Here is a purse of moneys, which I'm not going to give to you.

[mobias]

On the subject of Blackadder Tony Robinson interviewed Richard Curtis for his podcast this week. I'm not sure there's anything massively new in it for Blackadder fans but its worth checking out if you haven't listened to it. He does talk at some length about the ideas for the fifth series and why it didn't happen.  They also discuss the music.

[Mobbd]

On the subject of Blackadder Tony Robinson interviewed Richard Curtis for his podcast this week. I'm not sure there's anything massively new in it for Blackadder fans but its worth checking out if you haven't listened to it. He does talk at some length about the ideas for the fifth series and why it didn't happen.  They also discuss the music.

Does either of them refer to the show as "Adder"?

If they don't, I refuse to listen.

[idunnosomename]

I always just want to call it Bl'adder for short. was that the original joke I wonder?

Blackadder is a real Scottish clan name though, and the surname of a bishop of Glasgow who was elevated to the first archbishop of Glasgow in 1492. If you've ever been to Glasgow Cathedral you'll probably have noticed the Blackadder aisle as an unfinished stump that sticks out the side and does nothing, which is quite fitting

[jobotic]

I used to be able to do the whole wise woman bit. "Yes, the wise woman," etc. I was like that Python-quoting idiot in Sliding Doors.

Here is a purse of moneys, which I'm not going to give to you.

"Yes it is" not "that it be"

is probably my favourite line of the entire series.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I am adispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulations.

[Matthew Dawkins Jub Jub]

On the subject of Blackadder Tony Robinson interviewed Richard Curtis for his podcast this week. I'm not sure there's anything massively new in it for Blackadder fans but its worth checking out if you haven't listened to it. He does talk at some length about the ideas for the fifth series and why it didn't happen.  They also discuss the music.

I hope they really go into the character of Bald Rick, the drummer.

[Underturd]

I always thought it was 'unless you want to end up slaughtered'. But you're right, it's the best theme of the lot.

It's definitely shorter not slaughtered but II theme music is better.

[Dogbeard]

Re: the wise woman - it's the first time I remember being helpless with laughter watching a sitcom. The whole setup is fantastic, with the young crone he meets beforehand, but the bit that sent me over the edge is the climax when the wise woman enunciates the logical third option for Blackadder after killing Bob and killing himself (Kill EVERYBODY IN THE WHOLE WORLD). I just remember being 11 or 12 and belly laughing so hard at that moment. One of the moments that really got me interested in sitcoms, and Blackadder in particular.

[BeardFaceMan]

I was looking for something to do to test the new hardware I got for my guitars and recording software for my PC, so I did a version of the Blackadder theme. It would be best used on Back & Forth, where no-one will ever hear it.