"BATMAN THEME"

From an interview of Neal Hefti by Forrest Patten, September 7, 2004, for Journal into Melody:

Forrest: And, of course, there was the theme music from the TV series, Batman.

Neal: That one came very hard to me. It took me a couple of months to write. I had seen some footage and I knew how outrageous it had to be. So I needed to write a piece of music that was equally so. Well, when I first took the theme in to demonstrate it for Lionel Newman and the series producer at Twentieth Century Fox, I had to sing it and play it on the piano. Well, I’m no singer, and I’m no pianist. But I had Lionel and the producer, Bill Dozier, listening to me. My first thought was that they were going to throw me out, very quickly, but as I was going through it, I heard them both reacting with statements like, “Oh, that’s kicky. That will be good in the car chase.” My father, (a salesman) once told me, “If they say okay, get out of there before they change their mind.” When I saw Bill smiling, then I knew we had it.

The “Batman Theme” has been covered by countless artists, including The Kinks, 50 Cent and Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Prince, R.E.M., The Ventures and The Who.

For more information on “Batman Theme”, click here.