Those Were the Days

Kenneth blogged about his love of television theme songs some time back and that got me thinking about TV music. Only two shows that we watch come to mind theme-wise–Medium, which has a sort of Bernard Hermann feel to it, and CSI, which uses “Who Are You” by the Who (the other CSI spin-offs have Who themes as well). I’ve always kind of liked the Law & Order theme song, which I assume was written by Mike Post who also wrote the haunting piano theme for Hill Street Blues. But Law & Order has been on forever with spin offs that take that theme and skew it slightly–I actually tuned into one of those spinoffs just to hear how they would re-work the theme!

Whatever happened to having lyrics in a show theme? I’m scrolling through the networks’ website and noticing a few: Grey’s Anatomy, which is heavy heavy on the mood music, has a few lines in theirs but they don’t always play it. Scrubs has a very short opening-with-lyrics theme. There are plenty of shows that I’ve never seen but the newer ones that I’ve view all have unmemorable music over the credits and I’m wondering why this is the rule these days.

I liked how Twin Peaks had themes for every part of the show, like a movie or a soap opera does. While this is quite cheesy, music designed for the show really adds to the mood and keeps my interest. And recycling classic rock does not cut it for me–I’ve heard all those songs waaaay to much to be able to meld them with modern storylines. I’m sure there are scads of musicians out there who could whip together some good stuff for tee vee.

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