The theme for Big Little Lies made my tummy go all funny and the start of every episode. The titles of moms driving their kids to school along Big Sur probably added to the feeling of recognition as I was seeing similar scenery on the daily school run.
Succession's title sequence, both music and visuals, was the best thing about the show, especially as it droned into its increasingly tedious final seasons (it wasn't a bad show, but it was grotesquely overrated, and really should've ended after the second season at the latest) . But I always feel compelled to point out: the visual component of that title sequence was shamelessly ripped off from David Fincher's 1997 move The Game, in which the lead character's memories of his rich father's suicide were presented in EXACTLY the same sort of juddery home movie vignettes that the Succession intro used.
Oh yes, the visuals are certainly suspiciously similar to THE GAME (I'd forgotten just how similar, good spot), but this was about music ;-) Have to disagree about SUCCESSION... there's always an argument that a show could have been done in one fewer seasons, but it did keep me personally gripped until the end.
I've always been fascinated with Intro's to shows (and films). The only reason to watch James Bond was to see the epic intro they always made. I love this to the extent that one of my (yes I have written more than one) b.a. essays was on the topic of how media works together in intros. So when I look at this topic I can't focus solely on the music. You are missing the True Detective season 1 intro which is absolutely haunting visually and musically if you ask me. I do agree with you on Dr. Who (for some reason that song is just captivating!) and Richter of course. Another one I really like is the theme to M*A*S*H. The song in the theme isn't great but calls into memory the whole song and with the heaviness of the show it just kills me... I could go on and on! ;)
:-) Yes, someone else has raised MASH, and that's a very good one. And you're right about the visuals and music being a whole... I should have thought more about that.
Not going to argue about Succession being the best theme tune of all time, but:
1) You fucking forgot THE SOPRANOS!
2) Certain themes definitely speak more to our personal nostalgia than anything. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED does nothing for me, for instance, whereas I suspect that the themes from AIRWOLF, KNIGHTRIDER, and THE A-TEAM don't do anything for you - but they make me teary-eyed in an instant. The DAWSON'S CREEK and TWIN PEAKS themes give me literal chills, and I never actually watched either show!
3) I don't know about best, but I'm just going to throw in themes that I never, ever skipped, because of how very rare that is for me: Balthazar's 'The Man Who Owns The Place" from LA TREVE, Barns Courtney's "Glitter & Gold" from HARLAN COBEN'S SAFE, Handsome Family's "Far From Any Home" from TRUE DETECTIVE Season 1, Apparat's "Goodbye" from DARK, and the theme from TALES FROM THE LOOP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uShwmBH_UZQ
WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT NOT REMINDING ME OF ONES I SHOULD HAVE REMEMBERED, FFS
Okay, yes — (1) THE SOPRANOS should have been in there, that music and the visuals are epic. And you're totally right about some of these themes being nostalgia hits. I know the themes you mention in (2) but they fail for me because of the whole not-having-a-TV at that time thing. And on (3) both the ones from LA TREVE and DARK certainly resonate with me... but I don't know how much that's because I love the shows...
Anyway, I wanted a fight and clearly I've got one!
I was going to mention The Sopranos and ‘Woke Up This Morning’! But I hesitated (because I couldn’t decide whether I loved it because of its status as a theme song or because I’m a MASSIVE Alabama 3 fan) and was LOST. In the same vein though, the various versions of ‘Way Down In The Hole’ on The Wire are seminal TV theme tunes.
You could have done a Top 100 and there’d be bangers coming out of the woodwork to slap you in the face with their flawlessness. Starsky & Hutch! Game Of Thrones! Peter Gunn! Miami Vice! MASH! Roseanne! Happy Days and The Dukes Of Hazzard!
Same here, loads of times - a friend of mine was kidnapped by them when they visited our home town. Like heavily medicated Pied Pipers, they squirrelled her away and took her to the next show on the tour, leaving behind only a scattering of rizla papers and a broken set of knock off Ray-Bans to show they’d even been there. We demanded the town burghers take some form of action: we shook our fists and swore vengeance. Three days later she showed up again, sleepless, all smiles, no phone and no bra.
Needless to say, we imprisoned her for various witchcraft related offences, as was the fashion at the time.
Apr 19·edited Apr 19Liked by Michael Marshall Smith
The late seventies and eighties were a great time for absolute bangers on otherwise meh TV shows. From when I was a kid, when you'd remember an ad jingle or a TV theme that lasted thirty seconds for the rest of your life, I have a real soft spot for Bill Conti's Cagney & Lacey theme - not the original, the bigger, brassier one that debuted with season 2, just like I do with the creeping weirdness of Stu Phillips' Knight Rider or the electronic triumphalism of Sylvester Levay's Airwolf theme. Street Hawk might just be a direct rip off of both of those shows and only lasted 14 episodes, but the theme is by Tangerine Dream and it's fucking great. Joe Harnell's 'Lonely Man' theme for The Incredible Hulk, alongside Bill Bixby's soulful performance actually helped define the mood of the entire show. But my favourite out of all the eighties TV themes is still Mike Post/Pete Carpenter's cracking, propulsive Magnum PI theme (they also did the brilliant Rockford Files theme, and Mike Post gave us The A-Team, Hill Street Blues, and Quantum Leap, amongst others. Also produced Van Halen III, so I suppose they can't all be winners).
With the original Battlestar Galactica's theme tune, Stu Phillips (him again, so underrated) managed to out-Star Wars Star Wars. Ron Grainer's theme for The Prisoner remains a gloriously off-kilter sixties classic, and Lalo Schifrin's original Mission Impossible is an all-timer for a reason.
What about Barry Pheloung's incredible Inspector Morse theme, with that string counterpoint created by the morse code for the word MORSE? Or Denis King's unforgettable theme for Black Beauty? Or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where Dennis McCarthy manages to beat TOS to the title of best ever Trek theme? That's even if you decide to exclude any TV shows that use a song, which you didn't, so I won't - Cheers and Minder are two obvious killers.
Wow, LOTS of great ones there. And you're right, the 70s and 80s were kind of the glory years for themes and jingles that really burrowed their way into your psyche. Not sure whether that's because they represent an era in our lives, or inherent quality... but either way reading your paragraph was like being assaulted time and again by music I could instantly remember... right down to "I could be so good for youuuuuuu" in MINDER... :-)
STREET HAWK was the bomb - I remember preferring it to Airwolf and Knightrider, and it was definitely my favourite theme tune at the time, after THE MYSTERIOUS CITIES OF GOLD.
Ooh, some bangers there, to be sure: my wife and I still actually sing the MURDER SHE WROTE theme at each other whenever we enter the room to find the other busily typing...
Some great suggestions on here that I've forgotten or was going to put forward.
Definitely agree with Airwolf, Twin Peaks and Michael Kiwanuka singing Cold Little Heart for the Big Little Lies series standing out.
I've never seen Succession or Brideshead Revisited but the other three are pretty good😋
I'll put forward The Great Egg Race theme song, The Devil in Ohio series theme song Lessons of the Fire by Bishop Briggs, Westworld theme by Ramon Djawadi and Bilgewater by Brown Bird for Resident Alien.
Brown Bird I've mentioned to you before and they are worth checking out!
Ooohhh! I've just remembered The Krypton Factor! Was it an Art of Noise tune or rip off of some kind?
Ooh, some good ones here: you're the third now (including my wife) to remind me of BIG LITTLE LIES, which was great, to be fair. And interesting to see how AIRWOLF and TWIN PEAKS stick in a lot of people's minds...
As you said: we don't all have to like the same things. So other peoples' lists of this kind will definitely not resemble yours.
I hope they won't — looking forward to being reminded or thing or shown cool music I didn't know about :-)
I've always been a fan of the Mannix
theme song by Lalo Schifrin. https://youtu.be/H7TdnvEpgl0?si=AhJWgJral_LeAf5r
That is a classic, to be fair.
The Persuaders. Classic John Barry theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vafSPUXMXXU
Good entry
The theme for Big Little Lies made my tummy go all funny and the start of every episode. The titles of moms driving their kids to school along Big Sur probably added to the feeling of recognition as I was seeing similar scenery on the daily school run.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=UqMPhGL1VhY&si=YkDUnWiTtAWqRnJN
That's a really good one, actually. I had questions about the show, as you know — but that theme was super-evocative, and really brings it back...
Counterpoint: the Due South soundtrack, S1 and 2. Remains one of my favourite shows and TV themes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwIVJXVmAxU&ab_channel=TheRapSheet
I somehow never saw that show... must remedy.
It's absolutely bonkers, surreal and just lovely. One of the shows that really influenced my early (terrible) scripts :D
Monkey and the theme Monkey Magic.
Six Million Dollar Man
Starsky and Hutch (called Gotcha I think)
The Persuaders
Airwolf
Im a child at heart and of a certain era.
Ah the Starsky and Hutch one, yes... and there's been another vote for The Persuaders already, so you're not alone on that...
There is a milder version in the background of Morecambe and Wise parody called Starkers and Krutch. https://youtu.be/yIhsQLddllc?si=StdKAo65e_K4NEd0
I'd have to add Tony Christie's 'Avenues and Alleyways', from The Protectors
https://youtu.be/7Z-4IGSk9k0?si=uRU9mLn1GtnIJ5g2
and – above all else – Angelo Badalamenti's theme to the best TV show of all time, Twin Peaks.
Ooh, good entries... Avenues and Alleyways is so evocative :-)
Succession's title sequence, both music and visuals, was the best thing about the show, especially as it droned into its increasingly tedious final seasons (it wasn't a bad show, but it was grotesquely overrated, and really should've ended after the second season at the latest) . But I always feel compelled to point out: the visual component of that title sequence was shamelessly ripped off from David Fincher's 1997 move The Game, in which the lead character's memories of his rich father's suicide were presented in EXACTLY the same sort of juddery home movie vignettes that the Succession intro used.
Oh yes, the visuals are certainly suspiciously similar to THE GAME (I'd forgotten just how similar, good spot), but this was about music ;-) Have to disagree about SUCCESSION... there's always an argument that a show could have been done in one fewer seasons, but it did keep me personally gripped until the end.
And the way the main theme was adapted and used in different guises throughout the show, particularly I think in the final season, was genius.
I like the theme to MASH -- but the movie version with the lyrics. SUICIDE IS PAINLESS by the Mike Curb Congregation. https://youtu.be/FgcGOWaTPdU?si=2i4l8MRqHEhZUsXi
Yes, that is brilliant. Would def be in my top 10 ;-)
I've always been fascinated with Intro's to shows (and films). The only reason to watch James Bond was to see the epic intro they always made. I love this to the extent that one of my (yes I have written more than one) b.a. essays was on the topic of how media works together in intros. So when I look at this topic I can't focus solely on the music. You are missing the True Detective season 1 intro which is absolutely haunting visually and musically if you ask me. I do agree with you on Dr. Who (for some reason that song is just captivating!) and Richter of course. Another one I really like is the theme to M*A*S*H. The song in the theme isn't great but calls into memory the whole song and with the heaviness of the show it just kills me... I could go on and on! ;)
:-) Yes, someone else has raised MASH, and that's a very good one. And you're right about the visuals and music being a whole... I should have thought more about that.
Ooooh, MASH! How did I forget that? So many late nights watching it after the pub. That theme song seemed to capture something about being a grown up.
The Affair had a creative theme song by Fiona Apple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6muh9kTlr88
For better or worse, I may be back with more. You started something.
Ooh, I didn't know that one — that's really effective!
And yes, I evidently have started something!
It's a good show, too:)
Not going to argue about Succession being the best theme tune of all time, but:
1) You fucking forgot THE SOPRANOS!
2) Certain themes definitely speak more to our personal nostalgia than anything. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED does nothing for me, for instance, whereas I suspect that the themes from AIRWOLF, KNIGHTRIDER, and THE A-TEAM don't do anything for you - but they make me teary-eyed in an instant. The DAWSON'S CREEK and TWIN PEAKS themes give me literal chills, and I never actually watched either show!
3) I don't know about best, but I'm just going to throw in themes that I never, ever skipped, because of how very rare that is for me: Balthazar's 'The Man Who Owns The Place" from LA TREVE, Barns Courtney's "Glitter & Gold" from HARLAN COBEN'S SAFE, Handsome Family's "Far From Any Home" from TRUE DETECTIVE Season 1, Apparat's "Goodbye" from DARK, and the theme from TALES FROM THE LOOP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uShwmBH_UZQ
WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT NOT REMINDING ME OF ONES I SHOULD HAVE REMEMBERED, FFS
Okay, yes — (1) THE SOPRANOS should have been in there, that music and the visuals are epic. And you're totally right about some of these themes being nostalgia hits. I know the themes you mention in (2) but they fail for me because of the whole not-having-a-TV at that time thing. And on (3) both the ones from LA TREVE and DARK certainly resonate with me... but I don't know how much that's because I love the shows...
Anyway, I wanted a fight and clearly I've got one!
I was going to mention The Sopranos and ‘Woke Up This Morning’! But I hesitated (because I couldn’t decide whether I loved it because of its status as a theme song or because I’m a MASSIVE Alabama 3 fan) and was LOST. In the same vein though, the various versions of ‘Way Down In The Hole’ on The Wire are seminal TV theme tunes.
The WIRE song was *this close* to getting on there. And yes on the Bamas, so much of their stuff is great, but that SOPRANOS use just worked so well.
I should have done a top 10, evidently...
You could have done a Top 100 and there’d be bangers coming out of the woodwork to slap you in the face with their flawlessness. Starsky & Hutch! Game Of Thrones! Peter Gunn! Miami Vice! MASH! Roseanne! Happy Days and The Dukes Of Hazzard!
Huge Alabama 3 fans. We saw them live many years ago.
Same here, loads of times - a friend of mine was kidnapped by them when they visited our home town. Like heavily medicated Pied Pipers, they squirrelled her away and took her to the next show on the tour, leaving behind only a scattering of rizla papers and a broken set of knock off Ray-Bans to show they’d even been there. We demanded the town burghers take some form of action: we shook our fists and swore vengeance. Three days later she showed up again, sleepless, all smiles, no phone and no bra.
Needless to say, we imprisoned her for various witchcraft related offences, as was the fashion at the time.
That is an excellent story :-)
That story was enough for me to follow you on here. Excellent.
The late seventies and eighties were a great time for absolute bangers on otherwise meh TV shows. From when I was a kid, when you'd remember an ad jingle or a TV theme that lasted thirty seconds for the rest of your life, I have a real soft spot for Bill Conti's Cagney & Lacey theme - not the original, the bigger, brassier one that debuted with season 2, just like I do with the creeping weirdness of Stu Phillips' Knight Rider or the electronic triumphalism of Sylvester Levay's Airwolf theme. Street Hawk might just be a direct rip off of both of those shows and only lasted 14 episodes, but the theme is by Tangerine Dream and it's fucking great. Joe Harnell's 'Lonely Man' theme for The Incredible Hulk, alongside Bill Bixby's soulful performance actually helped define the mood of the entire show. But my favourite out of all the eighties TV themes is still Mike Post/Pete Carpenter's cracking, propulsive Magnum PI theme (they also did the brilliant Rockford Files theme, and Mike Post gave us The A-Team, Hill Street Blues, and Quantum Leap, amongst others. Also produced Van Halen III, so I suppose they can't all be winners).
With the original Battlestar Galactica's theme tune, Stu Phillips (him again, so underrated) managed to out-Star Wars Star Wars. Ron Grainer's theme for The Prisoner remains a gloriously off-kilter sixties classic, and Lalo Schifrin's original Mission Impossible is an all-timer for a reason.
What about Barry Pheloung's incredible Inspector Morse theme, with that string counterpoint created by the morse code for the word MORSE? Or Denis King's unforgettable theme for Black Beauty? Or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where Dennis McCarthy manages to beat TOS to the title of best ever Trek theme? That's even if you decide to exclude any TV shows that use a song, which you didn't, so I won't - Cheers and Minder are two obvious killers.
Wow, LOTS of great ones there. And you're right, the 70s and 80s were kind of the glory years for themes and jingles that really burrowed their way into your psyche. Not sure whether that's because they represent an era in our lives, or inherent quality... but either way reading your paragraph was like being assaulted time and again by music I could instantly remember... right down to "I could be so good for youuuuuuu" in MINDER... :-)
STREET HAWK was the bomb - I remember preferring it to Airwolf and Knightrider, and it was definitely my favourite theme tune at the time, after THE MYSTERIOUS CITIES OF GOLD.
See the things a kid misses out on, if you don't have a television... ;-)
Onedin Line
Star Trek
Murder She Wrote
Juliet Bravo
The Professionals
And....
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Ooh, some bangers there, to be sure: my wife and I still actually sing the MURDER SHE WROTE theme at each other whenever we enter the room to find the other busily typing...
Ace!! 😄
Some great suggestions on here that I've forgotten or was going to put forward.
Definitely agree with Airwolf, Twin Peaks and Michael Kiwanuka singing Cold Little Heart for the Big Little Lies series standing out.
I've never seen Succession or Brideshead Revisited but the other three are pretty good😋
I'll put forward The Great Egg Race theme song, The Devil in Ohio series theme song Lessons of the Fire by Bishop Briggs, Westworld theme by Ramon Djawadi and Bilgewater by Brown Bird for Resident Alien.
Brown Bird I've mentioned to you before and they are worth checking out!
Ooohhh! I've just remembered The Krypton Factor! Was it an Art of Noise tune or rip off of some kind?
Ooh, some good ones here: you're the third now (including my wife) to remind me of BIG LITTLE LIES, which was great, to be fair. And interesting to see how AIRWOLF and TWIN PEAKS stick in a lot of people's minds...
You know what, I'm going to throw in Hawaii-Five-O and The Benny Hill Show too. Because iconic 😉
I'll allow it. On those grounds only.