' Tina wanted to tell this story about a survivor of a religious cult and how her life would be after she had been rescued so we knew we wanted to reboot the premise with a theme song before every episode,' says Jeff Richmond, composer of the opening bop that - in an ode to the ridiculousness of internet culture - turns a news report detailing Kimmy's ( Ellie Kemper) escape into a heavily auto-tuned earworm in the style of the Gregory Brothers viral 'songifying' the news videos. (Or maybe not.) - Dalton Rossīefore there was a script or a treatment for the pilot episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, there was the idea for the theme song. And what was the backup plan had Waits' wife not gotten the VCR working? You'd be reading right now about 'A Common Disaster' by Cowboy Junkies. Wait until my wife comes home.' And then, the next day, he approved it!' The song - which had different performers each season, including the original Waits version for season 2 - will forever be linked with the HBO drama about the Baltimore drug trade that many (including EW) consider the best TV series ever.

Recalls Simon: ' says, 'I got the stuff you sent, but I don't know how to work the VCR. It was like, 'Jesus, what are we going to do if he says no?' ' Finally, the team procured Waits' number and called him directly. 'We mailed him versions of the show so he could see what it was about and he could see his song laid in, but he wasn't responding. 'We were getting near our airdate, and we still didn't have permission,' says the show creator. Devan Cogganĭavid Simon wanted to use the Blind Boys of Alabama's cover of Tom Waits' 'Way Down in the Hole' as The Wire's theme song, but there was one big problem: finding Waits to approve it. 'It can have that yearning quality that we put into the '80s version, and then also the sort of witchy, devilish feeling that we got into 'Agatha.'' Sometimes, to make a memorable theme song, it helps to conjure a little musical witchcraft. That recurring melody includes an interval called a tritone - better known as 'the Devil's Interval,' imbuing each theme with an unearthly, almost sinister tone. But, although each of the seven themes is sonically different, the songwriting duo wanted to maintain consistency throughout each episode, so they embedded the same four-note motif into every song.

The series' villain even got a theme of her own, with Agnes/Agatha actress Kathryn Hahn hamming it up on the Munsters-esque earworm 'Agatha All Along' (which scored an Emmy win and a Grammy nod). Each WandaVision opening paid tribute to different classic sitcoms, including a mostly instrumental Bewitched-style sequence and a campy family sing-along à la Family Ties.

Tv theme song ringtones