The Simpsons Theme
theme music of The Simpsons
"The Simpsons Theme", also referred to as "The Simpsons Main Title Theme" or "The Simpsons Theme song" in album releases, is the theme music of the animated television series The Simpsons. It was composed by Danny Elfman in 1989, after series creator Matt Groening approached him requesting a theme, and plays during the opening sequence of the show. The piece has been noted by Elfman as the most popular of his career.
Recording
Groening showed Elfman a rough edit of the opening sequence in their initial meeting, where Elfman suggested "something retro" since it had "such a classic feel". He wrote the tune "in the car on the way home from the meeting" and recorded the demo in his home studio later that day. Elfman sang the three opening notes of The Simpsons himself with two friends. He described it as one of his easiest compositions. The theme is in the Lydian dominant scale (or 'acoustic scale').
The theme was re-arranged during season 2, and the current arrangement by Alf Clausen was introduced at the beginning of season 3. It has also been edited many times to coincide with edits of various lengths for the opening sequence, and there have been extended edits and re-recordings for lengthened opening sequences.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Simpsons Theme” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.