Pop stars doing the theme tune to tv shows

there seemed to be a lot of this in the uk in the 80s, e.g. Dexys doing the theme to Brush Strokes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iuLJGnP_cU

Elvis Costello doing the theme to Scully

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq17ThoYJic

Ian Dury doing the theme to The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 and 1/4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhRsvWZ1Hlc

BA Robertson's theme to Maggie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coS9PnjjLc0

Bad Manners theme to Educating Marmalade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8ZpaVrwbPg

does anyone have more examples of pop stars doing wistful theme tunes to 80s tv shows, particularly melancholy-to-downbeat comedy dramas about adolescents? Didn't New Order do the incidental music for a tv drama around 1990?

I keep thinking that Press Gang should have one of these types of theme songs, but it doesn't

Doesn't fit your criteria but it's a total classic so take it away, Captain Sensible...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpuzSPmsNzQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zHTcxVjX0I

xp always happy to the big break theme. I didn't realize until years later that it was orginally from a 1984 Mike Batt concept album based on Lewis Carroll's The Hunting Of The Snark

The album The Hunting of the Snark, based on Lewis Carroll's poem, was recorded in 1984 and featured a star cast including Art Garfunkel (Baker), Sir John Gielgud (Narrator), John Hurt (Narrator), Roger Daltrey (Barrister), Cliff Richard (Bellman), Deniece Williams (Beaver), Julian Lennon (Baker) and Captain Sensible (Billiard Marker), and instrumental contributions from George Harrison and Stephane Grappelli. However the album not released at the time after a dispute with Sony Music, to whom Batt had leased the self-financed masters. Batt nevertheless went ahead with a promotional concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1987, which he filmed at his own expense and which was shown on BBC 2 TV. It can still be viewed on Youtube. The concert features Batt conducting The London Symphony Orchestra with soloists Billy Connolly (instead of Cliff Richard) as the Bellman, Roger Daltrey as the Barrister, Deniece Williams as the Beaver, Julian Lennon as the Baker, Captain Sensible as the Billiard Marker, Justin Hayward (instead of Art Garfunkel) as the Butcher, John Hurt as the Narrator and Midge Ure in a cameo as the Banker, playing guitar solos.

xp can't believe I forgot Clannad, surely unique in having done *two* iconic 80s tv themes

theme songs from Jack Rosenthal's 1979 tv play The Knowledge, music by Jeff Lynne, lyrics by Rosenthal, vocals by lead actor Mick Ford

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmo2VATs3Zk

Not exactly a massive pop star, but one of the greatest theme tunes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usFFKNRB2z8

And my favourite Bowie single of the 90s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHPIAFaKd1I

seeing Michael Elphick in the Knowledge there reminded me - Hi Ho Silver by Jim Diamond

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtJS9LPc7Po

I love the Buddha of Suburbia theme, has that same wistful vibe as the Scully, Adrian Mole and Maggie theme songs

Didn't New Order do the incidental music for a tv drama around 1990?

was this actually a thing or have I just imagined it?

theme songs from Jack Rosenthal's 1979 tv play The Knowledge, music by Jeff Lynne, lyrics by Rosenthal, vocals by lead actor Mick Ford

sorry, Jeff Wayne, not Lynne

New Order did some music for a football chat show called 'Best & Marsh' Gillian and Steven did quite a bit of incidental music later in the late 90s just before The Other Two, and some afterward iirc.

Was Joe Fagin a pop star? He did the 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet' theme.

Whoops, late 80s that should have been

jane siberry sang the theme song to maniac mansion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui78l-w-Tf8

the zoo gang (paul mccartney) hasn't been mentioned yet...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs4pBZEdCo4

and there's jose feliciano's "chico and the man" theme, of course

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahR3JYqkJCk

not really the same thing but i don't know wtf is with "alone again naturally" being used as one of the theme songs for classic 1980s anime "maison ikkoku"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKtZ6WuqJ8U

not, uh. not exactly what one thinks of when one thinks of "anime theme song".

Joe Fagin also sang the theme tune to 90s sitcom As Time Goes By.

If you count Dennis Waterman as a pop star then there's the Minder theme

Brian 'Pinball' Protheroe sang the theme tune to a tv adaptation of Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer that he was in, I don't know if he wrote it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX75dldzqFk

Going back to the 70s, Lynsey de Paul with the theme to sitcom "No, Honestly"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz06eCFF-oI

The Other Two did the theme for Common As Muck

David Essex sang the somewhat wistful theme to somewhat shite late 80s BBC sitcom The River which he also starred in. What a fall off after 'Me And My Girl (Night-clubbing)'..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW5crmTecb4

is it ok to say "shitcom"? i mean my speech impediment means it always sounds like "shitcom" when i say "sitcom", but i mean, if kusoge is a thing, "shitcom" should be too, right?

don't really have anything to add because I mostly don't remember the 80s or what I saw of it anyways but theme tunes to (what could be) 80s uk tv shows is one of my favorite genres of music so I hope there is more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WNbcRIiFGw

Pop folk stars doing the theme tune to tv shows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzgqEfpnIiI

Hasn't Andy Mackay done a bunch of these? Including

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9uJLU1-ZXM

And

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9uJLU1-ZXM

Whoops second one should be this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAEP0QruYIU

John Sebastian:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZzEzDkeHzI

Stewart Copeland did the incredible theme to The Equalizer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIxg2VOndg4

I always really loved Sammy Davis Jr's title theme for Barretta, "Beretta's Theme (Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow)".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jes-iZzy_Tk

Mike Oldfield - Blue Peter (1979)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4lb0gXOq4I

Ray Davies wrote the theme song to the UK TV show Budgie, "Nobody's Fool", performed by Cold Turkey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on-gPkUVyag

Don't know why Ray didn't sing it himself as whoever the singer was in Cold Turkey is doing his best Ray Davies impersonation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6uxiSsPWuA

Pop folk stars doing the theme tune to tv shows:

can't even imagine a world where I might stumble upon pentangle on tv, have expressed this in the past and people from/in the UK assure me it isn't all that great, but I wonder

Paddy MacAloon, sound of an ITV Sunday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uMpetPauwA

Pete Shelley's indelible electropop theme for Channel 4's Tour de France coverage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TIueuJtN1g

Neil Hannon / The Divine Comedy, Father Ted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewMNKECypbU

The Father Ted theme is an instrumental version of Songs Of Love from Casanova, that is an odd extended edit someone's made, I can hear the bit where it's looped.

Newman and Baddiel's late-'90s show used The Sundays' Another Flavour as its theme (DB being pals with the band).

xp ah well it's the first hit for 'father ted theme tune'! I believe it was used as the theme tune first before lyrics were added (father ted first shown april 95, casanova released april 96).

sorry, that's right yes, the show was out before the LP, I remember being pretty excited when I first listened to it "it's the father Ted theme! and it has words! etc." - the words have nothing to do with the show of course.

I am tempted to put together my own edit as I don't think it's ever been released, though he did put out a huge box set earlier this year so maybe it's on there.

I don’t know if Elkie Brooks is considered a pop star but absolutely love her work on A Very Peculiar Practice’s opening titles… composed by old progger Dave Greenslade I believe…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04qsAE5ZuX8

Further stretching the definition of pop star, the Ace of Wands theme by Alan Bown (Status Quo)... A psychedelic into title sequence for that "distinctly British CREEPY VIBE prevalent in TV shows and movies of the '60s/'70s" effect...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD48Xe8ul28

Oops - Andy Bown, formerly of the Herd and latterly Status Quo...

Neil Hannon / The Divine Comedy, Father Ted

Joby Talbot of the Divine Comedy has done a few TV themes, inc. The League of Gentlemen.