Month: March 2025

Turn on the TV, shut out the lights

Posted on by brucehhackett

Two weeks ago, while researching many dozens of TV theme songs to find the ones that had also made an impact as hit singles on the US Top 40 charts (see https://hackbackpages.com/2025/03/14/believe-me-the-sun-always-shines-on-tv), I was reminded of how much really great music has been featured to accompany main title sequences during shows’ opening credits.

Some of it was written as instrumental music expressly for the show in question. In some cases, the music already existed, written and recorded by alt-rock bands and off-the-beaten-path artists and then discovered by TV series producers who wanted one of these tunes for their new series.

It’s been my observation that more recent programming (since, say, 1990) has featured really compelling songs or instrumental themes, much more so than in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, whose theme music might have nostalgic value but perhaps isn’t really all that great musically.

Below I have assembled a dozen of my favorite examples of excellent TV music themes. Unlike the songs in the above-mentioned blog post, these selections were not heard on the radio, but they grabbed me every time I heard them when watching more recent TV series.

This will conclude my foray into TV music…but you never know. Perhaps some of my readers think there are others I’ve missed that deserve broader exposure. Time will tell.

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“Woke Up This Morning,” Alabama 3, 1997 (theme song for “The Sopranos”)

A 1996 murder case in which a victim of long-term domestic abuse was charged with killing her husband was the inspiration for “Woke Up This Morning,” a song by Rob Spragg, frontman for the British electronic pop/blues group Alabama 3. Found on the band’s 1997 LP “Exile on Coldharbour Lane,” the five-minute track opens as a hip-hop song that uses a Howlin’ Wolf blues loop before diving into lyrics about “a woman who’s had enough and gets herself a gun,” Spragg said. Rocker Steve Van Zandt, who played Silvio on “The Sopranos,” became aware of the song and brought it to producer David Chase’s attention, who agreed it would work (in truncated form) as the show’s theme song. “It’s marvelous,” he said. “It generates anticipation, immediately puts the viewer in a focused frame of mind, and creates the kind of sonic familiarity that breeds audience loyalty.” I’ve loved it since the show’s debut episode in 1999 and was even more intrigued to hear the full album version when I researched its origin.

“Game of Thrones Main Title Theme,” Ramin Djawadi, 2011

You know how, after a while, the opening credits and theme song of a TV series gets tiresome, so you skip it or fast-forward through it? That was definitely not the case for me when I watched “Game of Thrones,” the wildly popular fantasy drama that ran from 2011-2019. Not only was the title sequence an endlessly fascinating three-dimensional map of the series’ fictional world (which won an Emmy for Best Main Title Design), it was accompanied by a compelling, regal-sounding musical piece that I found irresistible. It was written by Ramin Djawadi, an Iranian-German composer of musical scores for numerous films and TV shows, including “Iron Man,” “Westworld,” “Person of Interest” and “Clash of the Titans,” as well as the “Game of Thrones” prequel series “House of the Dragon.”

“The Luck You Got,” The High Strung, 2005 (theme song for “Shameless”)

A Detroit-based band called The High Strung relocated to Brooklyn around 2000 and have released more than 15 LPs, embraced by a small but loyal following. In 2010, when TV producers got the green light to create a US version of the acclaimed British TV series “Shameless,” they happened upon “The Luck You Got,” a high-energy pop/rock track from The High Strung’s “Moxie Bravo” album from 2005. They decided it perfectly captured the chaotic atmosphere of the Gallagher family household and the edgy storylines of its characters. A one-minute version was used effectively in the title sequence, which shows family members parading in and out of the bathroom using the toilet, tending to an injury, brushing teeth and having sex. I’ve enjoyed discovering the full-length version of “The Luck You Got” (still only 2:48) and other music by this group, who are still active today. The show lasted ten years on Showtime (2011-2021).

“Dexter Main Title,” Rolfe Kent, 2006

British film score composer Rolfe Kent moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s and has become an accomplished writer of theme music and scores for dozens of movies, from “The Wedding Crashers” and “Legally Blonde” to “Mean Girls” and “About Schmidt.” In 2004, he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his original score for the award-winning film “Sideways,” which ended up paving the way for Kent’s involvement in composing the theme song for the Showtime TV series “Dexter” (2006-2013). He was nominated for an Emmy for the way the piece uses eclectic instruments like bouzouki, sax and tambour alongside electric piano, ukulele and strings to convey the alternating hot/cold nature of the lead character. It has since been used in sequels and prequels as part of a growing “Dexter” franchise in recent years.

“Who By Fire,” Leonard Cohen, 1974; Liz Phair, 2022 (theme song for “Bad Sisters”)

Based on the Belgian TV series “Clan,” this acclaimed Irish black comedy series debuted in 2022 and won multiple awards from Irish and British film academies in 2023 before Apple TV began streaming its two seasons for US audiences. “Bad Sisters” is a deliciously complicated story of four siblings who conspire to kill the malevolent husband of one of them, but things go wrong during multiple attempts. The producers found this somewhat creepy Leonard Cohen song from his 1974 LP “New Skin For the Old Ceremony,” which he had written following his experience performing for battle-weary soldiers during the 1973 Yom Kippur War in Israel. Sharon Horgan, who developed, wrote and stars in the series, recruited alternative rock singer Liz Phair to collaborate with composer/arranger Tim Phillips to record their own version of Cohen’s “Who By Fire” for use as the main title theme for “Bad Sisters,” which I found very appealing.

“The X-Files Main Title Theme,” Mark Snow, 1993

Mark Snow has written themes for hundreds of shows and TV films over the past four decades: “Hart to Hart,” “Starsky & Hutch” and “Smallville,” to name just a handful. His best known work is the eerie theme music for the popular science fiction series “The X-Files,” which debuted in 1993. Snow said the song’s famous “whistle effect” was inspired by a 1985 song by The Smiths called “How Soon is Now.” On Snow’s LP “The Truth and The Light: Music from The X-Files,” the Main Title Theme is entitled “Material Primoris” and runs 3:22, although on the show it lasts less than a minute. It was released as a single in 1996 in the UK and some European countries, and had modest chart success there. I have used the “X-Files” music as part of a spooky soundtrack for a haunted house I used to host each Halloween.

“Red Right Hand,” Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, 1994 (theme song for “Peaky Blinders”)

One of Australia’s longest-lasting exports in the rock music industry, if not its most successful, has been Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, who, since 1983, have developed a fiercely loyal following in the US alt-rock community, especially since 2000. In 2013, a mesmerizing track called “Red Right Hand” from the group’s 1994 LP “Let Love In” was selected to be the theme music for the violent British period drama series “Peaky Blinders,” which ran from 2013-2022. Cave said the song’s title came from John Milton’s poem “Paradise Lost,” referring to “the vengeful hand of God.” The music evokes a certain dread that mirrors the intimidating vibe that dominates the gangster story line. “Red Right Hand” is now considered one of Cave’s signature songs, which he still performs regularly in concerts.

“Theme From Northern Exposure,” David Schwartz, 1990

Schooled at music schools in New York and Boston, David Schwartz in the ’80s, David Schwartz went on to create theme music for several highly rated shows, including “Deadwood,” “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Arrested Development” and “The Good Place.” His most memorable music was created in 1990 for the quirky drama “Northern Exposure,” which ran for five seasons and won the Best Drama Series Emmy in 1992. Schwartz’s Zydeco-inspired theme was nominated for a Grammy that year, reaching #15 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It’s nice to finally hear the full-length treatment of the song instead of just a 30-second snippet.

“Where Everybody Knows Your Name,” Gary Portnoy, 1982 (theme song for “Cheers”)

Most of the music I’m featuring in this blog piece are from more recent TV shows, but I’ve always been partial to the welcoming strains of the “Cheers” theme song, which dominated the Nielsen ratings for most of its 11-year run (1982-1993). Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart-Angelo had written music and lyrics for an off-Broadway play called “Preppies,” and the songs appealed to Glen and Les Charles, the producers of “Cheers.” They commissioned the duo to write a theme for their show, and their first draft had lyrics with specific reasons why people might want to frequent a regular Boston pub: “Singin’ the blues when the Red Sox lose, it’s a crisis in your life, /On the run ’cause all your girlfriends wanna be your wife, /And the laundry ticket’s in the wash…” The songwriters were asked for more generic words and came up with: “Makin’ your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got, /Takin’ a break from all your worries sure would help a lot, /Wouldn’t you like to get away?…” A 2013 TV Guide poll picked “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” as the greatest TV theme ever.

“Theme From thirtysomething,” W.G. Snuffy Walden, 1987

Walden was a guitarist who worked and toured in England with such groups as Free and the Eric Burdon Band and also pursued solo performing opportunities. In L.A., he was approached by TV and film producers to write theme music, “and I could see the writing on the wall regarding the grind of touring. I kept envisioning being in Holiday Inns at age 60.” His first gig in this new discipline was for “Thirtysomething,” the smartly written baby boomer drama series that debuted in 1987. It’s a warm, melodic theme for acoustic guitar and piano, and it earned him an Emmy nomination and future assignments to write theme music for “The Wonder Years,” “Roseanne,” “The West Wing” and “Friday Night Lights,” among others.

“Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs,” Frasier, 1993

When the producer of the “Cheers” spinoff show “Frasier” went searching for an appropriate piece of music to serve as the show’s theme song, they decided they wanted something sophisticated and jazzy. They contacted Bruce Miller, an orchestral arranger and composer of dozens of themes for TV series like “Designing Women” and “Wings,” who teamed up with lyricist Daryl Phinnessee. Said Miller, “They told us ‘Don’t mention Seattle, or the name Frasier, or psychiatrists, or anything having to do with the show, but make it germane to the show.” Phinnessee came up with the clever “Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs” metaphor for “things that are mixed up, like Frasier’s phone-in callers.” Kelsey Grammar leapt at the chance to sing the theme himself. “I loved the lyrics. Frasier’s always discovering that life is confusing and is going to surprise him, but he’s going to figure it out,” he said about his character. “‘I got you pegged,’ he sings. It’s gonna be okay. That’s what I liked.”

“A Beautiful Mine,” Aceyalone with RJD2, 2006 (theme song for “Mad Men”)

Beginning in 1995, an L.A.-based hip-hop artist named Eddie Hayes Jr., better known by his stage name Aceyalone, became a proponent of “left-field, double-time” hip hop at a time when the harsher gangsta rap was in vogue. In 2006, he combined forces with ambient hop-hop producer Ramble Jon Krohn, known in music circles as RJD2, to create their widely praised “Magnificent City” album. On the five-minute closing track, “A Beautiful Mine,” Aceyalone riffs his way through his rap message. A couple months later, RJD2 released “Magnificent City Instrumentals,” which featured no-vocals versions of the tracks, and “A Beautiful Mine” perked up the ears of “Mad Men” producer/creator Matthew Weiner the same year, and from that, a 40-second edit of it became the show’s title sequence theme music.

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I mentioned “nostalgic” TV themes — those that announced shows from long ago that bring back great memories more than their intrinsic musical worth might merit. Here are a few from that category that come to mind for me: “Get Smart“; “My Thee Sons“; “WKRP in Cincinnati“; “The Dick Van Dyke Show“; “Top Cat“; “M*A*S*H“; “Mary Tyler Moore“; “I Love Lucy.”

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If you hear the song I sing, you will understand

Posted on by brucehhackett

August 31, 1974. A handful of friends and I were filing into cavernous Cleveland Muncipal Stadium for an eagerly anticipated “World Series of Rock” concert by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, with The Band and Santana also on the bill…but the weather looked grim. Even though we knew the music was going to be superb, none of us wanted to spend eight hours outdoors in crummy weather.

Grey skies turned darker. Rain started falling when the opening act, a talented singer-songwriter named Jesse Colin Young, took the stage with a modest backing band and sang nine or ten of his jazz-inflected folk rock songs. They gamely played through the raindrops as the stadium crowd of 82,000 began hunkering down for what looked to be a wet afternoon and evening.

But 45 minutes later, as Young began playing the title track of his new album “Light Shine,” something amazing happened. The rain stopped, the clouds began parting, and within a few minutes, the sun shone through. People rose to their feet in gratitude and applauded en masse, and from then on, the weather cooperated.

The fact that the storm ended as Young played “Light Shine” was just a glorious coincidence…or was it? I chose to give this musician credit for saving the day, and I headed out the next morning to buy the album, becoming enough of a fan to see him in concert three more times over the next several years.

This fond concert memory came back to me as I heard the sad news that Young died this week of heart failure at age 83. Although he achieved only modest success on the US pop charts during his career, he touched many lives. As rocker Steve Miller put it, “The world has lost a great troubadour with a huge heart and a beautiful, generous soul. Thank you for all the inspiration, peace, love and happiness you shared with us.”

Young’s biggest commercial success came early when he was the leader of the ’60s band The Youngbloods, who recorded the Chet Powers peace-and-love anthem “Get Together.” Powers had written it in 1963, and it was recorded by The Kingston Trio, We Five and Jefferson Airplane before The Youngbloods put their spin on it in 1967. Their single stalled at #62, but in early 1969, it was used in a “call to brotherhood” radio public service announcement by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. When re-released as a single, it reached #5 on US pop charts and has endured as a classic ever since.

Young said he had an epiphany when he heard singer Buzzy Linhart perform it in a Greenwich Village club in the mid-’60s. “The heavens opened and my life changed,” he recalled in 2021. “I knew that song was my path forward. The lyrics are just to die for. To this day, it gives me a thrill to play it.”

In case you’ve forgotten: “If you hear the song I sing, you will understand, /You hold the key to love and fear all in your trembling hand, /Just one key unlocks them both, it’s there at your command, /Come on, people now, smile on your brother, /Everybody get together, try to love one another right now…”

In his heartfelt obituary in The New York Times this week, writer Jim Farber wrote: “Young’s voice was as sensuous as his words. Blessed with a boyishly high pitch, and with the ability to bend a lyric with the ease that a great dancer uses to navigate a delicate move, he balanced his innocent character with a sophisticated musicality. His phrasing, like his composing, drew from a wealth of genres, including folk, jug band music, psychedelia, R&B and jazz, both traditional and modern.”

A black-and-white photo of a young, clean-shaven Mr. Young, standing at a microphone and strumming an acoustic guitar.
Young in 1964

Young was born Perry Miller in 1941 in Queens, NY, and showed an aptitude for music he inherited from his mother, a perfect-pitch singer and violinist. He studied piano and classical guitar and was particularly enamored of blues, jazz and folk music during stints at Ohio State University and New York University. He admired the then-thriving folk music scene in Greenwich Village, quitting school to perform full time.

He chose his Western-sounding stage name by combining the names of outlaws Jesse James and Cole Younger, as well as the Formula One designer and engineer Colin Chapman.

In 1964, he won a contract with Capitol, releasing his debut LP, “The Soul of a City Boy,” a collection of acoustic blues and folk. While touring, he met guitarist Jerry Corbitt and formed The Youngbloods, who became the house band at Cafe Au Go Go in the Village for a spell.

A black-and-white photo of Mr. Young and three other men, standing side by side and looking directly into the camera.
The Youngbloods in 1967: Young, Jerry Corbitt, Joe Bauer and Lowell Levinger

Though the Youngbloods’ albums — “The Youngbloods” (1967), “Earth Music” (1968), “Elephant Mountain” (1969), “Good and Dusty” (1971) and “High on a Ridge Top” (1972) — never enjoyed much chart success, several of their songs proved popular on FM stations of the era, particularly in California, which helped precipitate Young’s move to the Marin County area, where he lived much of his life. One of those songs was the harrowing “Darkness, Darkness,” Young’s reflection on what he imagined US soldiers felt in the Vietnam War, which has been covered by a dozen other artists including Richie Havens, Eric Burdon, Mott the Hoople, Golden Earring, and Robert Plant, whose 2002 rendition won a Best Male Rock Performance Grammy.

Young chose to disband The Youngbloods and resume his solo career in 1973, releasing the impressive “Song For Juli” album, which out-charted anything The Youngbloods had done, peaking at #51. It contained mostly country rock originals as well as a jazz-inspired tribute to his Marin home, “Ridgetop.” That LP kicked off a respectable five-album run between 1973-1977: “Light Shine” (1974), “Songbird” (1975), the live “On the Road” (1976) and “Love on the Wing” (1977).

I found Young’s music so appealing because it tended toward feel-good melodies and positive topics. “Love of the natural world is as much a theme in my music as romantic love,” he said in 2016. “I got a bigger high out of walking over the ridgetop in Marin and looking out at the national seashore than any drugs I ever did.”

And yet, perhaps my favorite Young track is a pensive 11-minute piece called “Grey Day,” in which he observes how gloomy weather can affect his mood: “It’s a grey day, and the pine trees are dripping in a grey mist, /And I feel like I’m tripping in a grey world, /My reality’s a-slipping, /lost in a fog on a such a grey day…” He snaps out of it with the next tune, the aforementioned “Light Shine,” where he urges us to be beacons of hope: “Come on, be a sunrise, /Let your love light fill your eyes, /Yeah, and let it shine on all night and day, /Moving like a river flow, we can make the feeling grow /If you only shine on, shine on all day…”

He was among the socially conscious artists who participated in the “No Nukes” concert and movement in 1979, adding “Get Together” to the proceedings and subsequent album next to Crosby, Stills and Nash, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and The Doobie Brothers.

As times changed in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Young’s music fell out of favor with much of the record-buying public, but when I saw Young perform at a small club in Cleveland Heights in 1986, he held the small but adoring crowd in the palm of his hand. He continued to periodically release new LPs on various labels, including his own Ridgetop Music. Each of the ten albums he put out between 1978 and 2019 has some fine tunes worthy of your attention (some of which I just discovered in the past few days as I reviewed Young’s catalog), and I’ve included some of them among the better-known songs on the Spotify playlist you’ll find at the end of this piece.

Young in 2019

I’d like to shine a spotlight on “For My Sisters,” one track from his final LP, 2019’s “Dreamers.” It has lyrics that I suspect many of us feel like singing loudly in these troubling times: “This is a song for resisters and everything we hold dear, /A world where everyone’s welcome, and all our voices are heard, /And though the darkness surrounds us, we feel the love that has bound us, /And we won’t fake it anymore, you can’t fake it anymore, /It’s time to even up the score, don’t mistake it, /We won’t take it anymore…”

Rest in peace, gentle troubadour. Let us hope we soon learn not just to “try and love one another” but to actually do it.

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