Did you know that the theme song for Star Trek TOS has lyrics? I wrote about this years ago, but I wanted to bring up this interesting story again. After telling a younger coworker about the story, I thought about redoing the tale behind the TOS theme song controversy. Due to how interesting the story is, I will be breaking this up.
I need to talk about the sheer shitty behavior of Gene Roddenberry. Gene was an idealistic man who did believe in humanity, but Gene wasn’t that idealistic person in real life. He screwed over a lot of people in his lifetime. He was more like his creation, the Ferengi than he would admit. Gene, while loyal to his friends, wasn’t a good person. Back in the day, some people protected the image of Gene Roddenberry and didn’t bring up the darker sides of the man.
Alexander Courage, a pipe-chomping film and movie composer, wrote the theme for Trek. The song was inspired by the song Beyond the Blue Horizon by Richard Whiting, no not the abbot from the 1400s. When you listen to it, you can tell that through the fast-moving backing music. I can hear it now.
I should add that Gene wanted Jerry Goldsmith to compose the theme for Star Trek, but he was unavailable. Goldsmith suggested Courage.
There are different versions of the TOS theme song depending on the season and episode. Sometimes, there are vocals, without lyrics, that show up in the theme. Some early episodes don’t have it. They recorded the theme for the remastered version years later.
During the first pilot, Courage wrote the theme and provided the “shoosh” sound for the Enterprise zipping by the screen. Yep, that sound is of the composer just making up a sound for a warping starship. Anyway, Gene, who was mad he wasn’t getting as much money for creating Trek, got wind of Courage getting royalties for writing the theme. Like the Ferengi, he came up with a devious plan to screw over Courage and make some money.
Gene could smell the money in music rights…
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