Welcome to Song Lyric Saturday, a new feature for my NaBloPoMo month of March–and it may make occasional appearances even after that’s over, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m not a big fan of short stories in traditional form, but when they’re set to great melodies and last for under four minutes, sometimes they really work for me. 

I’m developing a new routine during my drive home on Friday afternoons: listening to the latest edition of my favorite podcast, NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, which usually gets posted for download before I leave the office. It’s as close to any “happy hour” as I get, really.

This week, the show’s featured topic was TV-show credit sequences, which morphed into a discussion about favorite TV-show theme songs.

The TV-show theme song–especially the old-fashioned kind with lyrics that basically explain the show’s premise–is becoming an endangered species. Shows don’t have theme songs at all, or the songs are have no words, or they were licensed for the show’s use rather than written specifically for it.

There are still a few examples of the tradition out there, though, and not just on TV Land. Barenaked Ladies’ song “History of Everything” started out as the theme for The Big Bang Theory, and both the song and the show are favorites of mine.

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,

Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait…

The Earth began to cool,

The autotrophs began to drool,

Neanderthals developed tools,

We built a wall (we built the pyramids),

Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,

That all started with the big bang! 

“Since the dawn of man” is really not that long,

As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song.

A fraction of a second and the elements were made.

The bipeds stood up straight,

The dinosaurs all met their fate,

They tried to leap but they were late

And they all died (they froze their asses off)

The oceans and pangea

See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya

Set in motion by the same big bang! 

It all started with the big BANG! 

It’s expanding ever outward but one day

It will cause the stars to go the other way,

Collapsing ever inward, we won’t be here, it wont be hurt

Our best and brightest figure that it’ll make an even bigger bang!

Australopithecus would really have been sick of us

Debating out while here they’re catching deer (we’re catching viruses)

Religion or astronomy, Encarta, Deuteronomy

It all started with the big bang!

Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology

It all started with the big bang!

It all started with the big BANG!

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