Doctor Who theme: Ron Grainer (composer) Delia Derbyshire (musician, arranger) | Hacker News Reader

Doctor Who theme: Ron Grainer (composer) Delia Derbyshire (musician, arranger)

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Orbital did it well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H_o6ncUz3g

There's also a version arranged by Ron Grainer.

Whatever you're expecting, it's not this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1SZs4xudf8

It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting BUT it is what I should have expected. It has a lot more in common with other TV themes of the time. It’s also different enough to justify the legendary exchange where Grainger reportedly asked Derbyshire if that was really what he wrote. The story goes that she replied “Yes… mostly”

Worth reading his son @snakesofself's comment below that video for additional context.

As a fan of the show, and what it did to advance the art of visual storytelling, learning more (and understanding less!) about the artists just makes the whole thing more interesting and more human.

This version came out in 1980 almost 2 decades after the Derbyshire version and is trying to be hip in a 1980 way using a synth line that is clearly inspired from Derbyshire.

I remember reading the following anecdote about Grainer, repeated on Wikipedia, though neither I nor Wikipedia have a source for it: "Grainer was amazed at the resulting piece of music and when he heard it, famously asked, "Did I write that?" Derbyshire modestly replied, "Most of it." [1]

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_theme_music#:~:text....

That’s a wonderful anecdote. I would love to know what source material she had to work with… sheet music, demo tape with conventional instrumentation, just a jam session that laid out the basic themes? Probably lost in the mists of time. No, wait, TO THE TARDIS EVERYBODY!!!

I heard that one in one of the documentaries I went throught when I followed the first link yesterday. Can't remember where though. I think it was a quote from a phone conversation with Derbyshire.

A version still influenced by Delia Derbyshire's version. Being recorded in 1980 it could use a commodity synth to give it some of the flavour of the Derbyshire arrangement.

This is awesome! it would be cool if the next season plays with the theme song every episode… add this one, maybe have a mariachi version and maybe big band… :)

Oh, Radio Free Skaro uses this version on their podcasts!

KLF's more fun take https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsAVx0u9Cw4

This track is infamous for being the proof of concept behind the KLF's formula for writing instant #1 chart hits.

Once it did indeed go to #1 in the UK, they wrote a book about how to do it, which several other artists followed and also went to #1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual

I heard this when I was young, and I wasn't that familiar with the Dr Who TV show. So when a hockey game was on TV I thought "oh cool they're playing the Dr. Who song".

And that hockey song was part of Gary Glitter's Rock'n Roll. Here's Part 2: https://youtu.be/Nras3c8r45k

My personal fav hockey song is Chelsea Dagger by The Fratellis: https://youtu.be/2gDb_axpfeY

> And that hockey song was part of Gary Glitter's Rock'n Roll

Yeah that's the joke, that I was naive enough to think that American sports fans would be into Dr. Who or The KLF.

I was an Orbital fan back in the early nineties... and I really hate it.

It diminishes the magic of the OG, the breakbeat is lazy and out of place and it has nothing of what made Orbital good which is how their layers would interact with each other in rewarding ways.

It's a shame because I could imagine a mix working in their early 90s style like Remind from the brown album e.g. add more synth layers sympathetic with the OG mood/style getting increasingly richer and more intense and acidy until a beat starts emerging from between the layers.

By the 00s, they just spin a beat on top like a DJ. Bleugh. Not quite as hateable as the KLF's version at least.

Same, I was a huge Orbital fan back in the day but found their version of the theme lazy and boring.

In contrast, around the same time they put it out, Plaid put out a track named Unbank that I'm convinced was inspired by the Doctor Who theme and is imo rather fantastic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc39YRO8HM4

As soon a I read Unbank I had the tune in my head, it is rather good.

That's interesting. I do hear Derbyshire's influence!

I get what you’re saying but it still sounds amazing live.

I think it’s one of those tracks that really needs a big rig to come alive. Anything less than that and it can sound a little flat.

Orbital has always been a lazy cut and paste band. I mean they have some bangers but their music is generally sterile IMO. Even their synth patches feel stock and uninventive.

https://youtu.be/M9P4SxtphJ4

Craig Ferguson version of Orbital version.

I always wanted to do a trio version of this with my brothers with me on double bass, one brother on banjo and the third on violin, but alas, my oldest brother died before it could move beyond just being a dream.

Doctor look out! is permanently burned into my brain from this for the past 20+ years

edit: maybe it's the live version or a remix. there's a version in my inventory that definitely has that sample

The original is, well, OG, but I prefer the Orbital version, esp. when listening on something that won't butcher the bass (ie not a phone, laptop, or cheap headphones).

This is a superb version. Thanks for sharing

Apparently Grainer thought Derbyshire's contributions were sufficient to warrant co-composer credit, but BBC rules didn't allow it.

ooh Ron Grainer also did the delightfully creepy theme tune to Tales of the Unexpected

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js7T-VTL91k

As a child of the 1970s I can’t begin to describe how evocative this is… absolute shivers down the spine on hearing this old school analogue version again, immediately summoning up both terror and excitement at what was about to come. That “opening sting” they describe in the notes (the dramatic descending sound before the main bassline kicks in) was usually only used at the end of an episode to underscore whatever dramatic cliffhanger or plot twist had just occurred. By which point my sister and I, along with millions of other British children, would be hiding behind the couch in fear… this is the days when, to quote National Lampoon, we had “only three channels and no MTV” and I “pity the fools” who tried to schedule any competing American action shows on the other major channel at the same time.

There is of course, only one Doctor that counts, and it’s Tom Baker all the way…

Dr Who gets labelled as SF, but it's really Victorian horror in the tradition of Wilkie Collins and Henry James, with a coat of silver science fiction paint and more than a few nods to Shakespeare. It's always had that terrifying aspect with its focus on ghosts, wizard, witches, and monsters, some of whom happen to be alien, all of whom are still recognisable as distorted humanity.

For more mainstream alien SF horror you want Nigel Kneale's Quatermass series. If you squint hard you can see the influence of the original 1950s Quatermass episodes in Dr Who's DNA.

IIRC one of the original aims of the series was to teach children about important historical events by wrapping them up in a Sci-Fi-time-travel-gothic-horror story. Which is then particularly ironic given that the original airing was postponed due to the Kennedy assassination. I particularly loved the story where the Doctor accidentally started the Great Fire of London, for example, and people have hailed the Marco Polo story as an example but I was too young and/or not yet born when that came out… sorry I’m not going to go and fact check any of the above claims right now, unfortunately as a grown up I have to resist the temptation to fall into an enormous nostalgia hole in favour of doing some actual work. (I’m sure the internet won’t hesitate to correct me if I’m wrong)

The Quatermass tip is a good one, I’ve heard good things but never actually checked it out yet. Personally I stopped liking horror very young and preferred the Space Opera direction, particularly when Terry Nation (creator of the Daleks) went off to make Blake’s 7 for the BBC instead. High concept: Shakespearean actors from RADA and/or the RSC do a low-budget, ludicrously camp rebels-against-the-evil-empire tale while somehow pretending it’s serious drama (which it occasionally was) and keeping a straight face all the way through. Not to mention what weird effects the evil androgynous boss-lady Servilan had on my just-developing sexuality (I confirmed this with friends of the same age, it’s not just me…)

It may please and amuse you that this fellow child of the 70's, growing up across the pond in Boston, could have written that exact same comment, nearly word for word. The impact of Doctor Who was truly global, and for many of us Americans, our first introduction to the BBC (as rebroadcast via PBS affiliates in the States) and to British culture in general.

Also an avid Dr. Who fan in the 1970s, growing up on Long Island and watching it on my black and white TV on Saturday mornings on PBS. I was the only kid I knew that watched it though. Having my own television (mostly used for my Atari 400 computer) helped me explore all the channels, leading me to PBS. I loved Dr. Who so much, I couldn't wait for Saturday morning. Then it was followed by all kinds of other shows nobody else I knew watched, one of them was Computer Chronicles. It was all so much better than watching cartoons.

PBS, back in the 70s and 80s used to broadcast so much British stuff. Not just Doctor Who, but Monty Python, The Two Ronnies, Fawlty Towers, Are You Being Served and so much more if I were to dig into my memory to find it. I still have the Tom Baker Doctor Who scarf my mom knit for me back around 1980ish. My kids love the new Who, but I’ve not been successful in getting them to watch any of the classic era stuff.

Fun fact: my older brothers and a friend of theirs made a transcription of the theme for four-handed piano and were selling the sheet music at cons until they got a cease and desist letter from the BBC.

My local PBS did a BBC block on Saturday evenings, but on Friday night they did Red Dwarf on its own. The Saturday block was where I was introduced to Rowan Atkinson with Black Adder. I still quote "I have a cunning plan".

Ah yes, but could you put a tail on it and call it a weasel?

Same, me as a child of the 80's in Delaware... inspired so much interest in tech, sound; even the old intro video effects were uncanny. It's a pleasure now to share new episodes with my kids and occasionally go on a run through some classic episodes for backstory.

I haven't read through the comments fully, but check out "An Electronic Storm" by White Noise https://wikidelia.net/wiki/An_Electric_Storm

> Tom Baker all the way…

The best, yes but William Hartnell defined the role and came up with the idea of regeneration if I remember correctly. It saddens me so many of those episodes are lost. I watched it on US public TV in the 80s, and I think even some of the episodes I watched then are gone.

I had some of those episodes on VHS, too, recorded at the worst possible quality to fit as much as possible on one cassette. Lost in the mists of time...

well said. I always wanted his scarf, and even had a go at building a K9 at one point. I still have my Dr Who 1st Annual tucked away somewhere, and a Lego tardis. Some of the relaunch story lines were good, Rose Tyler, and Clara Oswin Oswald, but Tom Baker will always be the hiding behind the sofa memory. Jelly bean anyone?

Not trying to be mean, but I’m pretty sure it was jelly _baby_ which is even funnier because they are cute and squishy.

I lost interest in the reboots after a few years but thought Ecclestone was truly marvellous, and I did return for Jodie Whittaker. Perhaps because they are both northerners like me. “Lots of planets have a North” might be one of my favourite lines of all time.

Also, since we’re mostly here to talk about the music, I absolutely love the frantic strings and ominous horns of the Ecclestone-era version. Sets up the excitement in a different but equally captivating way.

ah yes, affirmative, jelly baby, thanks. I might dig those out this weekend for a rerun.

Some of the reboots also had some nice remixes on the theme tune, some real heavy base on the last season I watched.

> There is of course, only one Doctor that counts, and it’s Tom Baker all the way…

I could have written this entire post, but especially the last line. The 4th Doctor theme is my phone ringtone on the very rare occasions when it’s not on silent.

While Tom Baker was the first Doctor I ever encountered, Peter Davison was always my Doctor. The Time Crash mini-episode was especially delightful to me because (a) David Tennant is married to Peter’s daughter and (2) he apparently has the same fondness for Davison out of the classic doctors.

Davison had the benefit of some truly great writing. Colin Baker got very badly served indeed.

Thought I was the only one.

endorse this analysis and your assessment of the best Doctor

The Pertwee episode "Inferno" was the one that really frightened me as a child.

The Baker era was more captivating, and less terrifying (for me at least).

Pretty sure this classic by Pink Floyd also pays homage to the Dr Who Theme. At one point they play the main phrase which makes it more obvious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6-doD3VpyA

More apparant here around the 3 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48PJGVf4xqk

Also Whomix for many more interpretations

https://whomix.windbubbles.net/play

For those interested in more about Derbyshire, https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Derbyshire has previous entries:

* Delia Derbyshire – Sculptress of Sound [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0OGeEgwKNs)

* Delia Derbyshire – The Delian Mode [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2dvGQ32q8g)

* How Delia Derbyshire made the Doctor Who theme (1965)(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsRuhCflRyg)

plus links to essays and other text about her.

Delia Derbyshire is one of my heroes: an electronic music pioneer way before her time.

Hear, hear. Daphne Oram too.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Oram

She is one of the featured artists in Sisters with Transistors: https://sisterswithtransistors.com/

A GREAT documentary.