Fewer TV theme tunes are as divisive as the Friends theme. Seinfeld, with its synthesised slap bass, transcends personal taste. You can't imagine someone listening to that and not tapping their feet. But the Friends theme, 'I'll Be There for You' by the Rembrandts, with its sugary sentimentality, is like Marmite. People will either rejoice or recoil.
As it turns out, that split could have been avoided. The Rembrandts' one hit wonder wasn't even the first choice for the hit sitcom.
Kevin Bright, the show's producer, and who happened to be a fan of the band, put them forward as a possibility for the theme tune. The ones before that were Natalie Merchant and REM, whose song 'Shiny Happy People' was even tried out in a mock up intro for the show when it was still called Friends Like Us.
"To this day, we only get performance royalties," Danny Wilde of the Rembrandts said in an old interview. "Not publishing splits for the TV version of the song.
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"I mean, it wasn't actually a song Phil and I even wrote. We had credit on it, but Michael Skloff, musical director for the show, came up with the tune and Allee Willis, [plus others such as show creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane] came up with the lyrics. All they had was a 30-second verse and a chorus, so we tweaked the lyrics a little bit, Phil came up with the signature riff at the start of the song, and we went back a few days later and recorded the verse and the chorus."
The group is said to have made north of $5 million in royalties.
Featured image credit: Warner Bros.
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Friends