May 2010
13 posts
“This arrangement of the theme song just doesn’t really sound right.”
—I should probably confess that there is a guy on the internet who knows a lot more about TV themes than I do. All I can do is try not to copy offa him too much. But it’s cool he agrees with me about Veronica Mars.
Hey Beautiful
The Solids
So, How I Met Your Mother was created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, who are also two of the members of the band The Solids. According to wikipedia, The Solids started at Wesleyan and has yet to release an album, but has provided music for a number of shows, including the theme song for Oliver Beene, also known as “a show I never watched and would be hard-pressed to say how long it ran, who was on it, or what its cultural significance was.” Did any of you watch it?
Anyway: here’s the opening credits to How I Met Your Mother:
It’s the end of the full song “Hey Beautiful” by The Solids, which I think is a wise move, in the sense of not including the lyrics. The lyrics to the song, literally interpreted, have a sort of weak idea of consent. But the ba-ba-ba-ba part (Boring Old Raphael keeps trying to get us to sing lyrics “How I mettt/your mother…,” but it is not happening, sorry.) is definitely fun. It’s actually about as incongruous a part of the song as the ending bits of “Layla” are a part of “Layla:”
(Remember this from that episode of Community?)
I also like the pictures of the cast members, looking like overexposed photographs from an exciting party where everyone had a good time. It sets the tone for the show well, except that in the past couple of years, the show has become less about young-ish people and their cool New York lives and more about people in their thirties growing up and being mature. Which makes sense, but actually makes the opening credits seem like the kind of thing the main characters would look at, and think, “Wow. It’s sure been a while.” before taking their multivitamins or whatever it is adults do.
As a special bonus, you can enjoy these two things I found online. The first one is pretty decent, and the second one actually makes me want to watch FRIENDS (?). But they’re worth watching as a reminder of how much the opening credits of a show can affect its tone:
