Great theme song

For this week's entry in the "great annoying songs that I love" category, I'm straying a bit from that original intent. Instead of a repetitive song like the pickle song from Pontoffel Pock, I'm going to the realm of TV theme songs. It's unfortunate that TV theme songs now seem mostly of a bygone era. The lamest of TV themes can become great catchy tunes to keep in your head. And there's always the gold standard of annoying, repetitive theme songs: the Gilligan's Island theme. A song like that is instantly recognizable, and I feel like there are others that deserve such recognition. I also love when rock bands do covers of TV themes. In the '90s there was a whole album of saturday morning cartoon themes covered by popular bands. The Dickies' version of the Banana Splits theme was recently used (to perfect effect) in the movie Kick-Ass (my thoughts on Kick-Ass may warrant another post in the near future).

The subject of this post is one of the few modern TV theme songs. Most shows have just a title card now, or a brief few seconds of score. At most, it's dramatic notes under the titles. That's why this song is so great; it's a throwback to when TV shows had catchy songs you wanted to hear and sing; themes that invited you into the show. The show to which I refer is the Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. His theme song is PERFECT.

It's short, but it's memorable and totally singable. It has a classic jazzy feel, reminiscent of older shows, yet maintains a certain modernity. It's lyrics completely fit the tone of the show. There's a great sort of synergy between host and theme song. The song really gets you in the mood for a jovial Scotsman. It's almost like a rowdy drinking song, when it gets late and everyone in the pub cheers together. The "hey hey" chorus bits really work for it. And I like the cheeky jokes about how we know the show is on late, but who cares? Enjoy it anyway! And then he caps it all off with "tomorrow's just your future yesterday", a lyric that is a little greeting card-like, but at 12:30 am sounds kind of profound. In terms of TV theme songs it is sheer perfection, and I hope it has the long-lasting legacy that the Sherwood Schwartz songs have had. I reproduce the lyrics below; be aware, this is only for reference. I'm sure the song is copyrighted, and no infringement is intended.

It's hard to stay up, it's been a long long day

And you've got the sandman at your door

But hang on, leave the TV on

And let's do it anyway, it's okay

You can always sleep through work tomorrow

Okay, hey hey

Tomorrow's just your future yesterday

The following video is a full-length version of the song, which is also great. But the short version works just fine for it's purpose.

Oh yeah, and I love the puppets.