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- Star Wars Theme. Listen to Star Wars's Theme. Are you surprised? Of course, the best movie music ever composed is the Star Wars theme. The epic chord that opens this composition is instantly recognizable and sets the tone for the huge adventure to come.
- Mission: Impossible Theme. Listen to Mission: Impossible's Theme. Lalo Schifrin's musical theme has featured heavily in the title sequence for every Mission: Impossible movie, often getting rearranged by different composers for each film.
- Indiana Jones Theme. Listen to Indiana Jones's Theme. Yet another pairing between John Williams and Steven Spielberg brings us one of the greatest movie themes of all time.
- Back to the Future Theme. Listen to Back to the Future's Theme. The musical theme from Back to the Future sounds absolutely massive. Of course, that's no surprise seeing as it was performed by a 98-piece orchestra, known as The Outatime Orchestra.
While there are certainly aspects that make songs different and unique, if you look closely among many song's subjects, you will notice a common list of themes. We will be breaking down 5 of the most common themes in songs .
- Tom Eames
- Rita Coolidge - 'All Time High' (Octopussy) Rita Coolidge - All Time High (The Theme Song From Octopussy) 1983. Yep, it's the one you probably forgot about and normally have to look up which film it was the theme tune for.
- Shirley Bassey - 'Moonraker' Moonraker - Shirley Bassey. Compared to Shirley Bassey's previous efforts ('Goldfinger' and 'Diamonds Are Forever'), this was a sadly forgettable theme.
- Lulu - 'The Man with the Golden Gun' The Man with the Golden Gun Opening Title Sequence. Another example of when the theme tune was one of the best parts of the movie in question, and this time it was Lulu's turn.
- Madonna - 'Die Another Day' Madonna - Die Another Day (Official Music Video) Disclaimer: We have a strange soft spot for this bonkers Bond theme from Madonna, but...
- Blue Moon
- Cheek to Cheek
- Ol’ Man River
- Somewhere Over The Rainbow
- When You Wish Upon A Star
- Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
- As Time Goes by
- White Christmas
- Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
- Baby, It’S Cold Outside
“Blue Moon” evolved as a song from the MGM soundtrack-writing system, source of some of the best movie songs in their time; Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart tailored the eventual finished version for a Clark Gable film called Manhattan Melodrama. The beautiful lyrics – “Blue moon/You saw me standing alone/Without a dream in my heart/Without a love o...
Russian-Jewish émigré Irving Berlin wrote “Cheek To Cheek” in a single day, on demand, for the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie Top Hat. The song lights up a memorable scene during which a tuxedoed Astaire declares his love for Rogers (dancing elegantly in a feathery white gown). The gorgeous words – “And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak” ...
For a tune to really make its mark among the best movie songs it sometimes has to find the right singer. The 1927 Broadway drama Show Boat featured Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s song performed by actors, and, a year later, Paul Whiteman (with Bing Crosbyon vocals) had a minor hit with it. But when it was sung in the 1936 film version by Pa...
Some songs are the perfect vehicle for a performer’s interpretation and improvisation, and certain numbers are remembered more for the singer than the writer. If you mention “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” people are more likely to think of Judy Garland’s soaring version for the 1939 film The Wizard Of Oz than the gorgeous work of composers Harold Ar...
Cliff Edwards, a middle-aged singer known as Ukulele Ike, voices the crow in Dumbo, but his voice is better known for singing the wonderfully sentimental “When You Wish Upon A Star” for the Disney classic Pinocchio. The movie theme was written by two giants of film music – Leigh Harline (“Whistle While You Work”) and Ned Washington (“High Noon”). T...
Who would have thought that a song written for an Abbott and Costello comedy would become a wartime classic? Patty, Maxene, and Laverne Andrews based their early style on the close harmonizing of The Boswell Sisters, and the public loved it. The Andrews Sisters’ song about the boogie-woogie bugle boy of Company B survived World War II and was a hit...
“As Time Goes By” was actually written by Herman Hupfeld for a short-lived 30s Broadway musical, Everybody’s Welcome, but took on a life of its own as one of Hollywood’s best movie songs, becoming embedded in the popular musical psyche after it was sung by pianist Dooley Wilson in the Humphrey Bogart-Ingrid Bergman movie Casablanca. The same old st...
Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” was on an album of songs from the film Holiday Inn, and the lyrics resonated with thousands of American troops away on duty in the Second World War. “White Christmas” earned songwriter Irving Berlin a 1943 Academy Award and, well beyond being one of the best movie songs of all time, it has become the biggest-selling ...
This started as a dark Christmas song, but when Judy Garland complained that some of Hugh Martin’s lyrics were uncomfortably bleak, he altered them and “Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last/Next year we may all be living in the past” became “Have yourself a merry little Christmas/Let your heart be light/Next year all our troub...
Another song that made it into the movies only by chance, but which rightly deserves its place among the best movie songs of all time, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” replaced Frank Loesser’s “Slow Boat To China” and became a smash hit, winning an Oscar for Best Original Song. In the movie Neptune’s Daughter, the song – a jokey call-and-response number t...
- Dream On (By Aerosmith) “Every time that I look in the mirror. All these lines on my face getting clearer. The past is gone. It went by, like dusk to dawn.
- Simple Man (By Lynyrd Skynyrd) “Mama told me when I was young. Come sit beside me, my only son. And listen closely to what I say. And if you do this it’ll help you some sunny day.
- Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (By Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door) “Baby stay right here with me. ‘Cause I can’t see you anymore. This ain’t the way it’s supposed to be.
- Tears in Heaven (By Eric Clapton) “Would you hold my hand. If I saw you in heaven? Would you help me stand. If I saw you in heaven?” Disillusionment.
Feb 10, 2021 · Aspiration. Nostalgia. Pain. Desperation. Rebellion. Escapism. Confusion. Before grabbing your pen to write songs for each of these themes, it is important to note that different periods of time yielded songs with seasonal themes, while some lyrical themes have proven to be evergreen.
This category is for groups of songs that share topics with each other. For groups of songs that share stylistic characteristics with each other, see Category:Songs by genre. For theme music to movies and television shows, see Category:Theme music. Individual songs should not go into this category.
