Expanding on a topic from yesterday: As several of you have noted, lyrics are often written to a theme song just because someone would like to collect some ASCAP or BMI money. Gene Roddenberry, for instance, wrote obscure lyrics to the theme for the original Star Trek so he could share in that royalty loot. This reportedly displeased Alexander Courage, who penned the tune to which those lyrics were set. Which raises a question I have…
When Johnny Carson took over The Tonight Show in 1961, he adopted as his theme, a newly-written tune cleverly called "Johnny's Theme." The BMI listing says this song was written by Paul Anka and Johnny Carson, and that means that every time that tune was played, Mssrs. Anka and Carson received money. Over the years, that added up to an awful lot of cash. Not only was there $$$ every night when it was played on The Tonight Show, but if it was played elsewhere, there was a pretty high fee for its usage. It was so exorbitant that once on a variety show I worked on, when another writer wrote a Carson parody and wanted to employ the tune, the producer said, "If you want it, you pay for it!" The writer opted to structure the sketch so it excluded Johnny's opening.
The presumption has always been that Mr. Anka wrote the song all by himself. It is, in fact, a close rewrite of an earlier tune he'd written for Annette Funicello called "This Must Be Love." But the story goes that the deal to get Carson to use it involved giving him half-credit and therefore half of the BMI fees. One suspects Mr. Anka made so much off this arrangement that he didn't mind sharing. But it makes one wonder (or at least, makes me wonder) if either Anka or Carson thought of writing lyrics to the thing. I've seen the published sheet music and there are none on there. Anyone know for sure?
In the meantime: I mentioned yesterday here that the theme song to Mission: Impossible had lyrics. You can hear them in this video as performed by the Kane Triplets. I'm afraid they're not a whole lot better than the lyrics to the Odd Couple theme…