In the age of streaming, it’s becoming easier and easier for shows to get away with having a sub-par theme song.
No matter what is on the screen, it’s likely that those opening credits are getting texted through or, thanks to Netflix’s “skip credits” feature, ignored altogether.
This doesn’t mean that there’s not a subtle art behind the TV theme song , however. As audience’s attention spans grow shorter, a piece of music that both embodies the ethos of a show and grabs the viewer by the ears is actually more important than ever before.
Click through the gallery to below for the greatest TV theme songs of all time:
A rotating cast of musicians were tasked with covering Tom Waits’ formidable dirge “Way Down in the Hole” for The Wire’s theme, including Steve Earle and The Blind Boys of Alabama. No one beat Waits at his own game, though, the gravelly voiced king of the gutters used for the prolific drama’s second series. Regardless of who was singing, the message would remain the same: “When you walk through the garden / You gotta watch your back.”
Having the YouTube-famous Gregory Brothers, responsible for viral hit “Bedroom Intruder”, remix a news report of the show’s protagonist being rescued from an underground cult for the theme song is unbelievably strange, but also brilliant. The warped, breakneck burst of bubblegum ridiculousness that it became is truly uncharted grounds, tearing down walls separating television, streaming services and video platforms in a very catchy fashion.
Netflix
That they reused this theme for the recent Twin Peaks revival, an uncompromising, phantasmagoric trip through the mind of David Lynch, is intentionally and deliciously jarring, and that’s only because Badalementi’s theme so perfectly embodied the kitschy, nostalgia-drenched warmth of the original Nineties series, a simpler time. With ominous shadows lurking just beneath the beautiful crescendos, though, maybe Twin Peaks was never what it seemed.
The Twilight Zone, an anthology series that was light-years ahead of the curve, had a stellar soundtrack predating an impressive and abundant pantheon of great horror scores, spooking us way before we had Halloween or The Exorcist. It’s a bit of Frankenstein’s Monster, consisting of a number of promotional pieces haphazardly spliced together, but from the messy birth is a tense, ethereal and insanely influential hair-raiser.
Getty
As sung by co-creator and lead actor Matt Berry, one of the most under-appreciated and multifaceted talents of the decade, “Take My Hand” is rousing and poignant. Toast of London, a gloriously abstract, untamed animal of a comedy, is often punctuated by unexpected bursts of Berry’s singing, though no other performance quite reaches the loveliness of this theme – an emotional anchor in a sea of weirdness.
press image from Lis Clucas/Kuba Wieczorek/Channel 4
Alabama 3, an alternative rock band from Brixton, provides the theme song to a show that consistently outdoes itself with its music choices (see also: the series’ final few minutes). “Woke Up This Morning (Chosen One Mix)” is greasy and sleazy and Tom Waits-ish, a swamp of ominous synths and guitar licks, dipping into the weirder and artsier tendencies that The Sopranos would often divulge in.
HBO
With each title sequence, The Simpsons continually finds news way for America’s favourite family to come together on their couch, although the soundtrack to these journeys remains an unchanging monument. Honestly, “The Simpsons Theme” has transcended iconic status and is essentially a holy text by this point; excluding it from this list would have been sacrilegious. Shout out to Lisa who always knocks her sax solo out of the park.
This sleepy little lullaby of a theme song recalls the sensation of first waking in the morning, enthused by the feeling that everything is okay in the world. Bryan Daly’s almost whispered vocals speak of a heart-warming, enviously simple life for our hero Pat and his black and white cat; “Pat feels he’s a really happy man.” It’s a doorway to a world that, no matter the age, you would be happy to settle into.
Woodland Animations
What Gervais and Merchant’s version of The Office does so well is to embrace the humanity of everyday life, at-times hilarious, at-times pathetic. “Handbags and Gladrags”, originally written by Mike D’Abo of Manfred Mann but repurposed here by Big George, is unashamedly sombre and hungover. It sounds like that contrasting look of persistence to achieve better things and resigned acceptance on the face of every Monday morning commuter.
BBC
The lyrics to “Suicide is Painless”, omitted from the television title sequence but so married to the melody that they hang over it like a ghost, are heart-wrenching. They draw out the tragic, underlying nature of M*A*S*H, a comedy at heart, with their absence only highlighting the repression of this sadness. It’s unique and unprecedented in the sense that, each time it plays, it forces you to reconsider what it is you are about to see.
REX/TM & copyright 20th Century Fox.
The “Knight Rider Theme”, composed of pulsating, tensile synths and ticking programmed drums, is a very Eighties, Blade Runner-esque prediction of what the future would sound like: apocalyptic, sleek and synthetic. A bit like KITT itself, it’s nowhere near being timeless in that sense, but it’s undoubtedly cool even as a product of its time.
REX FEATURES
The It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia title sequence is all about ingenious contrasts. The episode titles often hilariously contradict the prior few minutes (see: “I’m gonna save my Dad!” into “Mac Kills His Dad), the shots of nighttime Philadelphia prove it’s not actually “always sunny”, and, best of all, the theme song hints at a certain lusciousness and grace. This, of course, is never the case. That “Temptation Sensation” is public domain makes it even more perfect.
Patrick McElhenney/FX
Faced with declining ratings, Happy Days doubled down on the feel-good factor and comedy aspects for the third series. This new theme song, replacing the equally recognisable “Rock Around the Clock”, follows suit, borrowing the same idea of making the most of the time we have but blowing it out to its most cheery, broad and archetypal potential.
Paramount/REX
The Rembrandts got it pretty spot on – no matter what you do to escape it, this song will always be there. A bit like an over-eager best friend, the track brings a certain comfort, a sense of normality and is boundlessly, almost annoyingly joyful. You can’t help but love it unconditionally.
sky
Never before has a backstory been so endlessly recitable. Pop maestro Quincy Jones collaborated with renowned 80s hip hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and the The Fresh Prince, who happened to be starring in the show, to create a genuine cultural touchstone in just 15 minutes. Much like his character, Will Smith makes everything he does look completely effortless, including writing a theme song for the ages.
NBC Productions
The fact that this theme still evokes the excitement of stepping into new worlds almost 60 years on is telling. Composed in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire’s otherworldly masterpiece has let loose the imaginations (and nightmares) of children for decades, itself a small but sturdy vessel that transcends time and space.
BBC
Distinctly unimposing and charming yet equipped with a biting sense of self-depreciation and an unmatched persistence, the theme for Dad’s Army perfectly captures British spirit. In fact, dismissing Hitler’s reign as a “little game” may be one of the most devastatingly British blows ever landed. Bud Flanagan, a vaudevillian comic in his own right, outdid himself.
Rex Features
Just beating out Seinfeld’s iconic slap bass is the hilariously cocksure clown march that soundtracks Larry David’s second masterpiece, Curb Your Enthusiasm. “There was something circus-y about it,” he once explained. “It tells the audience: don’t take this seriously.” It’s near-impossible to hear it without picturing a slow zoom into his helpless face, forever mocking his inability to understand a world that goes right over his bald, emblematic head.
HBO
The quintessential theme song, almost unanimously agreed upon as the greatest of all time. Gary Portnoy’s “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” is that warm rush you feel stepping in from the cold or, more aptly, a much-needed beer after a long day. A deep exhalation of a programme, Cheers was that sense of relief for so many people, and the theme couldn’t have captured or acknowledged that more perfectly.
From the giddy, opening horn flourish to the driving guitar, the chorus of “Batman”’s to the hits of brass choreographed to our hero punching out crooks, you’d be hard pressed to find a better-known superhero theme. Although the franchise would return to darker places, the unabashed campness here harks back to the innocence of watching cartoons on weekend mornings.
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