#012 Theme Music
No superheroic image is complete without some heart-thumping, moment-making, chart-topping, theme music. A tune so catchy, so infectious that even your enemies find themselves absent mindedly humming it while doing the evil dishes. A song so melodious that each and every citizen in your fine town can’t get it out of their heads no matter how hard they try. Like, there are people who catch themselves singing it so often that it’s basically their theme song.
There are many different kinds of theme songs, just as there are many different kinds of heroes. Some heroes like to go for a full-on forty-instrument orchestral piece. No catchy lyrics, no backup singers, no beautiful harmonies. Just instruments. This kind of theme music is super classy and can be very useful in eliciting emotional responses from people. The downside is that without poppin’ lyrics it might be hard for it to stick out in the public consciousness. Also you can’t just grab the best line from the song and use that as your catchphrase. ADDITIONALLY do you think people are gonna sing along to a theme song with no lyrics? Nanananana son, you’re totally boxing yourself out of the karaoke party market. Nobody is performing a lyricless song at a karaoke party, like are you even using your head.
Other heroes like to write (or have someone else write, I’m available!) their own catchy theme songs. Words and all. Backup singers optional. Sometimes, if a hero is really fly (that’s a pun) it’ll be a rap song. There are a couple of problems to this approach (sorry, one second, I don’t know if it was clear before, it was a pun because some superheroes can fly). First of all, for whatever reason most superheroes are not skilled songwriters so really I recommend outsourcing that (to me). Like there have been studies, there are graphs, having superpowers has an inverse relationship with ability to write a kickin’ theme song. (K last time I’m gonna talk about the pun from before, I just want you all to know that that pun was all me. My editor left me a note saying “this is a terrible pun. Rated -5 on a scale of -10 to 10.” Which is just, a dumb scale? Who measures things like that. Also, like -flyve would’ve been funnier.) Secondly, it’s important to note that for the most part, your theme song will be played either in the background of news reports about you, or maybe at the odd public event you show up to (like a ribbon cutting ceremony or one of those events where they shear a sheep that’s wandered out of the forest with like seven years worth of wool growth,) if you’re into that kind of thing. Because of this only brief snippets of the song will ever really be played so a lot of the work you put into crafting clever or upbeat lyrics is just a huge waste of time (I don’t mind wasting that time though. I still get paid even if no one ever hears the song). You should also make sure that each verse packs a lot of punch and verve and is just bursting with sick rhymes about how superheroic you are. Additionally, if a hero writes their own song they’ll often accidentally (or, if they’re just dumb which is a possibility I am not ready to discount) insert details about their origin story or possibly (heaven forbid) nods to their secret identity. Which is, of course, and I shouldn’t really still need to be saying this at this point, bad.
Once you’ve decided on the style of theme music you want you’re going to need to get someone to actually record it. Or, if you don’t want a recording (I dunno maybe you’re Amish,) you’ll need to get a choir or something to follow you around. And then you’re going to need to get jetpacks for your choir so they can follow you around and sing your praises from a safe distance while you’re throwing down with eldritch abominations or animated terracotta soldiers. These things, of course, cost money and then you get into things like royalties and insurance claims when one of your jetpack choir members inevitably flies into a building or a cloaked alien warship, it’s all just a huge hassle. To raise money for these kinds of highly essential superhero things might I suggest having a carwash or perhaps a bake sale or, wait, what? There’s a better way? A way where you don’t have to pay anybody anything? Well of course there is. There always is.
All you have to do to get someone to write, compose and record a theme song for you for free is to save a singer/songwriter/producer’s life! Then they’ll be indebted to you, or be so grateful that you rescued them from certain death by exploding cake (there are a lot of exploding baked good themed villains out there, like honestly, you’d be surprised,) that they’ll offer to do it on their own volition. Being a superhero is awesome! Doing this for an entire orchestra might be a bit trickier. That’s probably why only the highest profilest superheroes have super fancy orchestra theme music, it’s not often super villains attack busloads of musicians. Come to think of, this is probably why.
Once you’ve got your theme music all recorded and whatnot, you need to get it out there. The first thing you’ll want to do is send it to all the major news outlets so they can play it over reports about you. If you’re the kind of hero that wears super-advanced-high-tech-chock-full-of-cool-stuff-like-bunker-busting-missiles-and-cupholders armor, then maybe see about hooking up a dope surround sound speaker system to it that can actually play your theme music while you’re doing superheroic stuff like flying with both your fists facing forward or changing in telephone booths. You’re also going to want to send your theme song to all the major radio stations (and you know what all the minor ones too), then get that sick track to every dance club and juke-box-owning establishment that you can think of.
Remember, a theme song is not something to be taken lightly. A powerful theme song can be a powerful weapon. The type of song you use says a lot about the type of hero you are (and about the quality of singer/songwriters you save). A good theme song is catchy, upbeat, timeless. It should give the listener some information about who you are and what you’re about without giving too much away, (for example, if you are an animal-based hero, maybe throw in a line about being able to do whatever that animal can). Make sure your theme song leaves the public with the knowledge of who to call when there’s trouble. Maybe even throw in your hero-hotline phone number, like a commercial jingle! But most importantly your theme song needs to be able to provide hope in the darkest of times, inspiration during periods of helplessness and comfort to a public who is tired of living in fear of maniacal mechanical engineers with giant spider mecha! (Um actually, it’s Spider-Maniacal Mechanical Engineer and Spider-Mecha.)