I was watching The Office and Modern Family tonight and I noticed how short the opening theme music was. The Office used to have a longer theme but now its about twenty seconds, Modern Family always begins with a cold opening and then a theme of about ten seconds. It made me think wistfully back to the days when theme music was about a minute long:
but could be much longer...each episode of The Prisoner began with a THREE minute opening title:
and of course music in the 70's was, well, very 1970's:
this was a seventies show I loved set in the crazy future times of 1980: (Nick Drake's sister is one of the girls in the purple wigs)
my all time favourite might be this:
or this:
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I'm an Irish novelist currently living in St Kilda, Australia
"Hardboiled charm, evocative dialogue, an acute sense of place and a sardonic sense of humour make McKinty one to watch."
---The Guardian
A couple more books, a few birthdays, some shuffleboard then a period spent in the digestive tract of earthworms, followed by molecular breakdown, the sun boiling into space, the heat death of the universe, atomic decay, perpetual darkness, a trillion years of nothingness and then, if we're lucky, brane collapse, a new singularity and a new Big Bang.
About Me
I'm an Irish novelist currently living in St Kilda, Australia
You can read a review of my latest book, The Cold Cold Ground, in The Guardian, here. You can peruse the review from the Irish Independent, here or the review in The Times, here. The Glasgow Herald's verdict is here and The Sydney Morning Herald chips in, here. Not to be outdone The Irish Times weighs in, here and the Irish Sunday Independent adds its two cents, here. If you want to know what all the fuss is about you can be a good chap and get The Cold Cold Ground on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Audible.com or at your local bookshop.
Followers
More about me
I was born and grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. After studying philosophy at Oxford University I emigrated to New York City where I lived in Harlem for seven years working in bars, bookstores, building sites and finally the basement stacks of the Columbia University Medical School Library in Washington Heights.
In 2000 I moved to Denver, Colorado where I taught high school English and started writing fiction in earnest. My first full length novel Dead I Well May Be was shortlisted for the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was picked by Booklist as one of the 10 best crime novels of the year. The sequel to that book The Dead Yard was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the 12 best novels of 2006 and won the Audie Award for best mystery or thriller.
In mid 2008 I moved to St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia with my wife and kids. My last book Falling Glass was Audible's Best Mystery or Thriller for 2011. I've just published a new novel for Serpents Tail called The Cold Cold Ground.
In 2000 I moved to Denver, Colorado where I taught high school English and started writing fiction in earnest. My first full length novel Dead I Well May Be was shortlisted for the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was picked by Booklist as one of the 10 best crime novels of the year. The sequel to that book The Dead Yard was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the 12 best novels of 2006 and won the Audie Award for best mystery or thriller.
In mid 2008 I moved to St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia with my wife and kids. My last book Falling Glass was Audible's Best Mystery or Thriller for 2011. I've just published a new novel for Serpents Tail called The Cold Cold Ground.
WORK IN PROGRESS:
All Hail McKinty!
"If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland he would have written The Cold Cold Ground."
---The Times
"Hardboiled charm, evocative dialogue, an acute sense of place and a sardonic sense of humour make McKinty one to watch."
---The Guardian
"A literary thriller that is as concerned with exploring the poisonously claustrophobic demi-monde of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and the self-sabotaging contradictions of its place and time, as it is with providing the genre’s conventional thrills and spills. The result is a masterpiece of Troubles crime fiction: had David Peace, Eoin McNamee and Brian Moore sat down to brew up the great Troubles novel, they would have been very pleased indeed to have written The Cold Cold Ground."
---The Irish Times
"McKinty is a big new talent."
---The Daily Telegraph
"McKinty is a gifted man with poetry coursing through his veins and thrilling writing dripping from his fingertips."
---The Sunday Independent
"McKinty is a big new talent."
---The Daily Telegraph
"McKinty is a gifted man with poetry coursing through his veins and thrilling writing dripping from his fingertips."
---The Sunday Independent
"Adrian McKinty is fast gaining a reputation as the finest of the new generation of Irish crime writers, and it's easy to see why on the evidence of The Cold Cold Ground."
---The Glasgow Herald
"McKinty is a storyteller with the kind of style and panache that blur the line between genre and mainstream."
---Kirkus Reviews
"McKinty's literate expertly crafted crime novel confirms his place as one of his generation's leading talents."
---Publishers Weekly
"McKinty crackles with raw talent. His dialogue is superb, his characters rich and his plotting tight and seemless. He writes with a wonderful and wonderfully humorous flair for language raising his work above most crime genre offerings and bumping it right up against literature."
---The San Francisco Chronicle
"McKinty keeps getting better. He melds the snap and crackle of the old Mickey Spillane tales with the literary skills of Raymond Chandler and sets it all down in his own artful way."
---The Rocky Mountain News
"The first of McKinty's Forsythe novels, "Dead I Well May Be," was intense, focused and entirely brilliant. This one is looser-limbed, funnier...so, I imagine, is the middle book, "The Dead Yard," which I haven't read but which Publishers Weekly included on its list of the 12 best novels of 2006, along with works by Peter Abrahams, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy and George Pelecanos."
---The Washington Post
"McKinty, who grew up in Northern Ireland, has an ear for language and a taste for violence, and he serves up a terrifically gory, swiftly paced thriller."
---The Miami Herald
"There's nothing like an Irish tough guy. And we're not talking about Gentleman Gerry Cooney here. No, we mean the new breed of bare-knuckle Irish writers like Adrian McKinty, Ken Bruen and John Connolly who are bringing fresh life to the crime fiction genre."
---The Philadelphia Inquirer
"McKinty's writing is dark and witty with gritty realism, spot on dialogue, and fascinating characters."
---The Chicago Sun-Times
"If you like your noir staples such as beautiful women, betrayal, murder, mixed with a heavy dose of blood, crunched bones, body parts flying around served up with some throwaway humour, you need look no further, McKinty delivers all of this with the added bonus that the writing is pitch perfect."
---The Barcelona Review
"I really enjoyed [Dead I Well May Be’s] combination of toughness and a striking literary style. Both those things are evident in Hidden River. McKinty is going places."
---The Observer
"This is a terrific read. McKinty gives us a strong non stop story with attractive characters and fine writing."
---The Morning Star
"[McKinty] draws us close and relates a fantastic tale of murder and revenge in low, wry tones, as if from the next barstool...he drops out of conversational mode to throw in a few breathtaking fever-dream sequences for flavor. And then he springs an ending so right and satisfying it leaves us numb with delight and ready to pop for another round. Start the cliche machine: This is a profoundly satisfying book from a major new talent and one of the best crime fiction debuts of the year."
---Booklist
"The story is soaked in the holy trinity of the noir thriller: betrayal, money and murder, but seen through with a panache and political awareness that give McKinty a keen edge over his rivals."
---The Big Issue
"A darkly humorous cross between a hard-boiled mystery and a Beat novel."
---The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A roller coaster of highs and lows, light humour and dark deeds, the powerful undercurrent of McKinty's talent will swiftly drag you away. Let's hope the author does not slow down anytime soon."
---The Irish Examiner
"A virtual carnival of slaughter."
---The Wall Street Journal
"McKinty has once again harnassed the power of poetry, violence, lust and revenge to forge a sequel to his acclaimed Dead I Well May Be."
---The Irish Post
"A pacey, violent caper in which McKinty vividly portrays [Belfast's] sleazy, still-menacing underbelly."
---The Sunday Times
"McKinty writes with the soul of a poet; his prose dances off the pages with Old World grace and haunting intensity. It's crime fiction on the level of Michael Connolly with the conviction of James Hall."
---The Jackson Clarion-Ledger
"The Bloomsday Dead is the explosive final installment in a trilogy of kinetic thrillers."
---The New York Times
"Adrian McKinty has garnered nothing but praise for his first two books. The third in the trilogy The Bloomsday Dead should leave no doubt that he is a true star. Fast moving and highly engaging this is a great book. McKinty just gets better and better."
---CrimeSpree
"Until The Dead Yard's relentless, poignant ending you'll turn these pages as quickly as you can."
---The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"McKinty's Dead Trilogy has been praised by critics, who call it "intense," "masterful" and "loaded with action." If your reading pleasure leans toward thrillers offering suspense, close calls, wry wit, sharp dialogue, local color and sudden mayhem, you wont do better."
---The Sacramento Bee
"Le Fleuve caché d'Adrian McKinty impressionne par la richesse et la diversité de son ton et de son écriture, passant avec aisance du lyrisme ample de la nostalgie de l'amour perdu au rythme saccadé du narrateur sous l'emprise de l'héroïne. Ce livre rare et maîtrisé est une réussite bien digne de la Série noire."
---Le Figaro
Eine eigentlich simple Story, die natürlich bereits als Grundlage für Hunderte Bücher und Filme diente, macht Adrian McKinty zu der mitreißenden Odyssee eines jungen Mannes, der in der Lage ist, sich seiner Umwelt anzupassen wie jene Kakerlaken, die er in seinem Harlemer Appartement jagt, studiert und sowohl angewidert awie anerkennend entkommen lässt. Nicht umsonst 1992 angesiedelt, ist Der sichere Tod der kongeniale Kommentar zum Wesen der Neunziger.
- Jochen König, krimi-couch.de
"McKinty - that guy is a friggin genius."
---Ken Bruen
"McKinty is a cross between Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyan, the toughest, the best."
---Frank McCourt
"McKinty is an exciting new talent."
---Ed McBain
"Daddy's book is really boring."
---Sophie McKinty (aged 2 1/2)
"McKinty is a storyteller with the kind of style and panache that blur the line between genre and mainstream."
---Kirkus Reviews
"McKinty's literate expertly crafted crime novel confirms his place as one of his generation's leading talents."
---Publishers Weekly
"McKinty crackles with raw talent. His dialogue is superb, his characters rich and his plotting tight and seemless. He writes with a wonderful and wonderfully humorous flair for language raising his work above most crime genre offerings and bumping it right up against literature."
---The San Francisco Chronicle
"McKinty keeps getting better. He melds the snap and crackle of the old Mickey Spillane tales with the literary skills of Raymond Chandler and sets it all down in his own artful way."
---The Rocky Mountain News
"The first of McKinty's Forsythe novels, "Dead I Well May Be," was intense, focused and entirely brilliant. This one is looser-limbed, funnier...so, I imagine, is the middle book, "The Dead Yard," which I haven't read but which Publishers Weekly included on its list of the 12 best novels of 2006, along with works by Peter Abrahams, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy and George Pelecanos."
---The Washington Post
"McKinty, who grew up in Northern Ireland, has an ear for language and a taste for violence, and he serves up a terrifically gory, swiftly paced thriller."
---The Miami Herald
"There's nothing like an Irish tough guy. And we're not talking about Gentleman Gerry Cooney here. No, we mean the new breed of bare-knuckle Irish writers like Adrian McKinty, Ken Bruen and John Connolly who are bringing fresh life to the crime fiction genre."
---The Philadelphia Inquirer
"McKinty's writing is dark and witty with gritty realism, spot on dialogue, and fascinating characters."
---The Chicago Sun-Times
"If you like your noir staples such as beautiful women, betrayal, murder, mixed with a heavy dose of blood, crunched bones, body parts flying around served up with some throwaway humour, you need look no further, McKinty delivers all of this with the added bonus that the writing is pitch perfect."
---The Barcelona Review
"I really enjoyed [Dead I Well May Be’s] combination of toughness and a striking literary style. Both those things are evident in Hidden River. McKinty is going places."
---The Observer
"This is a terrific read. McKinty gives us a strong non stop story with attractive characters and fine writing."
---The Morning Star
"[McKinty] draws us close and relates a fantastic tale of murder and revenge in low, wry tones, as if from the next barstool...he drops out of conversational mode to throw in a few breathtaking fever-dream sequences for flavor. And then he springs an ending so right and satisfying it leaves us numb with delight and ready to pop for another round. Start the cliche machine: This is a profoundly satisfying book from a major new talent and one of the best crime fiction debuts of the year."
---Booklist
"The story is soaked in the holy trinity of the noir thriller: betrayal, money and murder, but seen through with a panache and political awareness that give McKinty a keen edge over his rivals."
---The Big Issue
"A darkly humorous cross between a hard-boiled mystery and a Beat novel."
---The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A roller coaster of highs and lows, light humour and dark deeds, the powerful undercurrent of McKinty's talent will swiftly drag you away. Let's hope the author does not slow down anytime soon."
---The Irish Examiner
"A virtual carnival of slaughter."
---The Wall Street Journal
"McKinty has once again harnassed the power of poetry, violence, lust and revenge to forge a sequel to his acclaimed Dead I Well May Be."
---The Irish Post
"A pacey, violent caper in which McKinty vividly portrays [Belfast's] sleazy, still-menacing underbelly."
---The Sunday Times
"McKinty writes with the soul of a poet; his prose dances off the pages with Old World grace and haunting intensity. It's crime fiction on the level of Michael Connolly with the conviction of James Hall."
---The Jackson Clarion-Ledger
"The Bloomsday Dead is the explosive final installment in a trilogy of kinetic thrillers."
---The New York Times
"Adrian McKinty has garnered nothing but praise for his first two books. The third in the trilogy The Bloomsday Dead should leave no doubt that he is a true star. Fast moving and highly engaging this is a great book. McKinty just gets better and better."
---CrimeSpree
"Until The Dead Yard's relentless, poignant ending you'll turn these pages as quickly as you can."
---The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"McKinty's Dead Trilogy has been praised by critics, who call it "intense," "masterful" and "loaded with action." If your reading pleasure leans toward thrillers offering suspense, close calls, wry wit, sharp dialogue, local color and sudden mayhem, you wont do better."
---The Sacramento Bee
"Le Fleuve caché d'Adrian McKinty impressionne par la richesse et la diversité de son ton et de son écriture, passant avec aisance du lyrisme ample de la nostalgie de l'amour perdu au rythme saccadé du narrateur sous l'emprise de l'héroïne. Ce livre rare et maîtrisé est une réussite bien digne de la Série noire."
---Le Figaro
Eine eigentlich simple Story, die natürlich bereits als Grundlage für Hunderte Bücher und Filme diente, macht Adrian McKinty zu der mitreißenden Odyssee eines jungen Mannes, der in der Lage ist, sich seiner Umwelt anzupassen wie jene Kakerlaken, die er in seinem Harlemer Appartement jagt, studiert und sowohl angewidert awie anerkennend entkommen lässt. Nicht umsonst 1992 angesiedelt, ist Der sichere Tod der kongeniale Kommentar zum Wesen der Neunziger.
- Jochen König, krimi-couch.de
"McKinty - that guy is a friggin genius."
---Ken Bruen
"McKinty is a cross between Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyan, the toughest, the best."
---Frank McCourt
"McKinty is an exciting new talent."
---Ed McBain
"Daddy's book is really boring."
---Sophie McKinty (aged 2 1/2)
Who's been dropping by
What's Next For Me?
A couple more books, a few birthdays, some shuffleboard then a period spent in the digestive tract of earthworms, followed by molecular breakdown, the sun boiling into space, the heat death of the universe, atomic decay, perpetual darkness, a trillion years of nothingness and then, if we're lucky, brane collapse, a new singularity and a new Big Bang.
Me & the Mrs in our survivalist bunker
Adios and thank you for stopping by....
Humiliation, unhappiness, discord are the ancient foods of heroes---Jorge Luis Borges
The measure of a writer isn't success, but how hard he tried to do what he knew he couldn't do---William Faulkner
I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen---J G Ballard
I read the dictionary once . . . It turns out that the zebra did it --- Steven Wright
Times are bad. Children disobey their parents and everyone is writing a book---Cicero
Made in Ireland
37 comments:
Theme songs are very evocative.
As children, when our parents would go out for a Saturday night, they'd get take-out dinners for us from a place that had very yummy fried shrimp. We'd eat the shrimp and watch "I Dream of Jeannie." To this day, if I hear the "I Dream of Jeannie" theme song, I smell fried shrimp!
Love it.
Some newer ones:
"Louie" theme song. http://youtu.be/IhHcqM6dpoU (Stories)
"Orig Weeds"
http://youtu.be/i8StRAJCork
(Malvina Reynolds)
"Game of Thrones"
http://youtu.be/53c8reh_uh0
(Angus Wall)
Every one a gem. When my mate Peter Ord was a kid he met Ed Bishop/Straker who said he liked Peter's yellow paisley shirt. In that cool American accent,too.I reckon Peter's life has never reached such a peak since.
Commercials used to be 30 and even 60 seconds long, too. I wonder if that phenomenon is related to the shrinking theme song.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Speedskater
I suppose the reason why they dont it anymore is to squeeze more revenue out of advertisers.
Trudy
Yeah I've been watching Game of Thrones. Actually HBO does a good job. The Sopranos was a pretty good modern theme too.
Paul
Well it wouldnt would it? Its a very weird show UFO but I totally bought into it when I was a kid.
Peter
I'm sure its all about the money isnt it? What was great about the Hill Street Blues opening title for example was the way it captured the show's essence and introduced the main characters; with the shorter themes now its more difficult for a new viewer to get what's going on.
There were some later episodes of UFO which, I think, were darker and more 'adult themed.' They had rumpy-pumpy in them, then. Altough, Ayshea Brough was adult enough for me.
I wonder which came first: a desire to make more money by accommodating more and therefore shorter commercials, or viewers' shrinking attention spans.
Whichever came first, the shrinking attention span is now firmly established, I think.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Paul
They were definitely scary. Scarier than DR Who which was in its Jon Pertwee era.
Peter
Sorry what were you talking about there?
I always liked the theme songs that explained the shows like Gilligan's Island and It's About Time (pretty much all the Sherwood Schwartz shows) - such a great combination of cheesy and fun.
In most countries the amount of commercial minutes per hour is pretty strictly regulated and sometimes changes for different times of day (usually more commercials allowed after 11pm, that kind of thing). Of course, most countries have pretty well-funded lobbyist these days so I guess getting the rules changed isn't too hard.
I don't know how many shows this is true of, but when Scrubs first aired, it had an extended theme song, and then as time went on they abbreviated it. But it always seemed to me like it was a kind of shorthand, and those 'in the know' didn't need any more than that to remember the whole.
Still, I found it unsatisfying, and it was probably around the time the show went south for me.
John
Yeah me too. Gilligan's Island is a classic example as is I Dream of Genie and Bewitched.
Seana
Cheers did the same thing. They eliminated the first the two lines from the theme song and it all went down hill from there.
Off Topic,
Christopher Hitchens must be into his final weeks of life, alas, because Martin Amis has written a really nice elegy for his friend in today's Observer, here.
It is a really good elegy. I don't entirely agree with some of its sentiments, but I suppose that is hardly the point.
May we all have such friends, who know us so well and forgive us anyway, come the day.
Thanks for the theme songs. I loved Mission Impossible and liked Hawaii Five-0. The others I didn't watch.
Nice trip down memory lane. What TV needs, in addition to some good dramas, is theme music we can enjoy.
Twenty varieties of CSI is not all of our cups of tea, certainly not reality shows and game shows.
Seana
Its nice that Hitchens can read it while he's still alive.
And of course his brain is still sharp. He did a nice piece this week in Slate on the royal wedding.
Kathy
You werent even curious about Space 1999? I admire your resistance.
I agree about the CSI clones. I pointed out on a blog post last year that more people are actually murdered per year on CSI NY, Law and Order SVU and Law and Order than are actually murdered in Manhattan in real life.
I read it. He also has this recent piece in the Atlantic on Philip Larkin, which I noticed at work the other day. I'm sure some of these pieces have been stacked up for awhile, still, he's very prolific for someone so ill.
showing my age here, my family could easily sing all the words to Spiderman I think. The other day I caught myself singing the whole of Arthur, The King Of Camelot (YES A CARTOON) which was a bit of a worry.
And I went to a wedding reception once where the groom's football team lined up for a photo and all sang "Gilligan's Island" while they were waiting - to entertain themselves, that is. But maybe all football teams do this at weddings? I don't go to footballers weddings that often :-D
think I can sing most of The Beverley Hillbillies too, but that is my brother's fault...
UFO and Dr. Who (Pertwee with some storyline concerning giant maggots) were a couple of rare bright spots for me when my family lived in Islington in 1973. The Dr. Who theme song rocked it to my 9 year-old ears.
The RJd2 theme for Madmen is such a good marriage of music and visuals that I never get tired of it. Also, if you fast-forward through it, it's a half decent drum and bass track!
The A-Team, Littlest Hobbo and Super Gran. Classics all of them. Do you remember The Raggy Dolls? None of my friends know what im talking about. Love the theme tune for that.
Seana
I missed that one. I'll check it out.
Gen
Me too with the Spiderman. I pretty much could do Gilligans Island and the Flinstones too.
Adam
Yeah Mad Men is pretty good but Breaking Bad isnt so fantastic in the title department.
Frankie
I remember the Raggy Dolls from my years of unemployment. The raggy dolls were happy just to be if I recall correctly.
Can he swing? Listen, bud, he's got radioactive blood.
Yeah and they were Dolls like you and me. Sad Sack and Mr Back-to-front. I think i identified with these little dudes as all my cuddly friends and dolls ended up looking like factory rejects after my brothers got hold of them.
It's true. Breaking bad is like two drawn out notes and some bongos. Not a lot to work with.
I have to put my vote in for The Simpsons: Danny Elfman's full orchestration must last at least a minute.
I don't think I've ever watched the show but Follyfoot had an amazing theme but my two favourites are Dangermouse and the largely forgotten Mr Rossi
And for completion I should include the theme songs to Ulysees 31, Around the World with Willy Fogg and The Mysterious Cities of Gold.
I can still sing all of the words to all three themes
Around the World with Willy Fogg
Whole new worlds, Rob. Whole new worlds.
Raggy Dolls was terrific. Kids shows in general are still waving the aspidistra. My kids can sing a few nineties themes.
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