Who Wrote The Theme Song To The Simpsons
A popular question among The Simpson’s fans is “who wrote the theme song to the Simpsons“. To many, the cartoon’s opening musical piece is just as popular as the show itself. The Simpsons Theme also acknowledged, as “The Simpsons Main Title Theme” in album releases, is the theme song of the very popular animated small screen (TV) series The Simpsons.
The Simpson theme song plays for the duration of the opening sequence of the cartoon and was composed by Danny Elfman in 1989, after series creator Matt Groening approached Danny asking for a retro-style type theme. The opening musical piece took Elfman about two days to produce, and has been noted by him as the most popular of his career.
The theme as used for the opening sequence was re-arranged during season 2, and the present arrangement by Alf Clausen was introduced at the start of the 3 season. It has also been edited numerous times to correspond with edits of a variety of lengths for the opening sequence, and there have been comprehensive edits and re-recordings for lengthened opening sequences. Numerous versions of the saxophone solo riff, seemingly played by Lisa Simpson in the animated sequence, have been created over the course of the cartoon series.
A slightly different arrangement of the theme more often than not plays over the end credits of the show. In the beginning, there were two main versions of the closing theme, with the longer version ending in a lower key. Both versions were re-arranged for season 3, but only the short version was in use by the end of season 4, and that version was edited to be even shorter during season 7.
In addition to the standard closing theme arrangement, certain episodes have had alternate versions of the closing theme used; some are composed in-house by Alf Clausen in alternate styles or as homage to other musical works, and some are covers by musical artists. The bulk of the time, these are used to tie into the plot of the episode itself.
- The Simpsons theme won the National Music Award for “Favorite TV Theme” in 2002, and has won the BMI TV Music Award in 1996, 1998, and 2003.
- In 1990, the theme was nominated for the Emmy for “Outstanding Achievement in Main Title Theme Music”.
Recent Comments