10 bands who wrote their own theme tune

‘Up Song’ – Black Country, New Road

Suddenly, in January 2022, Black Country, New Road had to rearrange, as mere days before the release of their second album, Ants from Up There, the band’s singer, Isaac Wood, announced that he was leaving, immediately, causing them to cancel their tour.

For most bands, that could cause complete and utter chaos, having to either scramble to find a new singer to pull off their old tunes, or just disband, but not Black Country. Instead, they regrouped and returned in December for two nights at London’s Bush Hall, where they made two things clear: one, they would no longer be performing any of Wood’s tracks, and two, they weren’t going anywhere.

The resulting album Live At Bush Hall becomes an emotional one in the context of the band’s bravery, defiance, and friendship, standing in the spotlight as they rallied together to make something incredible. To kick it off, though, they seemed to embolden themselves with a theme tune, reminding themselves that they always have each other as they sing on ‘Up Song’, “Look at what we did together, BCNR, friends forever”.

‘We Are The Clash’ – The Clash

In 1985, The Clash declared “we are The Clash”, right after firing two essential members of their group. 

It was a period of complete chaos where lead vocalist Joe Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon had just fired Mick Jones and Topper Headon, basically ripping the original band apart. Naturally, it meant that Cut The Crap was their last album as they truly never really recovered from the blow-up, and the band were inevitably not as good without two of its foundations.

However, as if to try and ignore all of that, the band did write themselves a theme tune that sounds like a football club, complete with a crowd of voices chanting, “We are the Clash!” in their laddiest voice.

‘Theme From PBS’ – Public Service Broadcasting

Much like how the theme from a movie or a TV show is designed to capture the energy and vibes in a quick piece of music, Public Service Broadcasting’s theme does exactly that.

During their show at Brixton Academy in 2015, held at the pinnacle of their career, the band created themselves a theme tune with the same technique they used across all their music, combining indie, electro and found material.

Chopping up archival footage, documentaries, news broadcasts and more, chunks of sounds or clips of people speaking become as much of an instrument as anything else in this interlude piece that captures the band’s ethos perfectly.

‘The 1975’ – The 1975

Sure, plenty of bands have written themselves theme tunes, but few have ever committed quite like The 1975, who open every one of their five albums with a redone version of their signature theme tune.

For the first three records, the song stayed the same as the short ditty about oral sex would just get a makeover to match the sonics of the album, evolving from the dreamy debut, through their bolder sophomore, into something glitchy. By album four, the theme was replaced with a speech by Greta Thunberg, and then for their most recent record, it had evolved into a full song.

But on each record, it is always simply ‘The 1975’, providing a snapshot of the band as they are in that era, tracing their evolution through these theme tunes.

‘Freazy’ – Wolf Alice

“Did you really wanna… with Alice? / Did you really wanna… with the wolf?”

On their debut album, the band call themselves out by name and drop the album title, so the track feels like a theme tune of sorts, or at least, the band saw it as a kind of call to arms and a song that reminds them to stay on course.

“It was the first time we started getting a bit of hate from people. So ‘Freazy’ was a reaction to that in a way. Like ‘fuck you, it doesn’t matter, we’re going to do what we want anyway’”, Ellie Rowsell said of the song, so each time they play it, they’re reminded to only focus on the job at hand, and isn’t that what a theme tune is for?

‘Bad Company’ – Bad Company

The track ‘Bad Company’ by Bad Company, the band, on their debut album, Bad Company, really shows that they wanted to make sure you knew who they were.

However, the 1970s British rock band surely win the prize for the most badass theme tune as ‘Bad Company’ is tense, seductive and then completely epic, proving their power as a unit as ex-members of Free, King Crimson and Mott the Hoople came together for a new project.

If I have one issue with ‘Bad Company’, it’s that the band didn’t commit, wherein this tune should have been the opening number for every gig they ever did, soundtracking the start as if they were wrestlers coming out to their own fight song.

‘Public Image’ – Public Image Ltd.

Almost instantly after quitting Sex Pistols during the band’s collapse, Johnny Rotten had established a new outfit. Reverting to his real name of John Lydon, the punk reemerged with a new act and a new statement of intention that he laid off on the band’s debut self-titled single.

“I’m not the same as when I began / I will not be treated as property,” he roars on the track that both takes aim at the Sex Pistols and their ex-manager Malcom McLaren, and looks towards the future. “What you wanted was never made clear / Behind the image was ignorance and fear / You hide behind this public machine / Still follow same old scheme,” Lydon claimed as he accused McLaren of only caring about the band as an image or a product, not a group of artists.

But this time round, that wouldn’t be the case as on his own theme tune, Lydon made himself clear: “Public image belongs to me”.

‘Ziggy Stardust’ – David Bowie

When David Bowie emerged with his first fully formed and thorough character, delivering The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust as a narrative concept album, he wrote himself, or the protagonist, a theme tune.

“Now Ziggy played guitar / Jamming good with Weird and Gilly / And the Spiders From Mars,” Bowie sang as he did exactly that, alongside his bassist Trevor Bolder and guitarist Mick Ronson, to whom he’d given new nicknames, too. Capturing the essence of this alien, rockstar, messiah figure, Bowie is essentially laying out the entire story of his character right here.

On February 10th, 1972, the first time David Bowie ever stepped onto stage as Ziggy Stardust, he started right there, beginning with the theme tune to introduce the new era and his persona for it.

‘Creeque Alley’ – The Mamas and the Papas

Just as so many TV show theme tunes give the audience a brief run-down of the context and the story, thus calling out character names or generally setting the scene, The Mamas and Papas did exactly that. 

‘Creeque Alley’ is their theme tune as they provide context for their own band. “John and Mitchy were gettin’ kind of itchy / Just to leave the folk music behind,” they begin, catching you up on the origin of John and Michelle Phillips, and “Zal and Denny” come next as Denny Doherty and his old bandmate were merely “workin’ for a penny”.

Following all the band members through their stories, Mama Cass is introduced in the first three as the band sings, “When Cass was a sophomore, planned to go to Swarthmore / But she changed her mind one day”, ending the story with the band getting together, they conclude “California dreamin’ is becomin’ a reality”, as if that episode of the band’s show is about to begin.

‘(Theme From) The Monkees’ – The Monkees

In this case, the band wrote themselves a literal theme tune as they actually did have a TV show.

Appearing on a show called The Monkees, the series followed the band as they tried to make it in rock and roll, tracing the beginning of the group’s career, so really, this theme tune out-dated any of their other music.

A shorter version was used for the series, while a longer one later opened up their debut album, but no matter which one you know, chances are the second you even see the words The Monkees, you’re already singing in your head, “Hey, hey, we’re The Monkees, and people say we monkey around!”