The Theme Song Thunderdome

I almost did!

Round 1 Results

Thanks to everyone who participated in round 1! The poll has closed, and we have a 3-3 tie between @forgeforsaken’s Season of the Witch and @SadleyBradley’s Welcome Home (Sanitarium).

Both great choices, and I’m going to listen to both one more time before breaking the tie…

In the meantime, a quick shout-out to The Matriarch, as when I was listening to it I felt like you could almost make a music video pairing scenes from the last episode of WandaVision with lines like “Freedom doesn’t exist. You can’t resist.” and “You won’t get far”.

… OK, we’re back, and after another listen, I’m going to give the tiebreaker to Welcome Home (Sanitarium).

Congrats @SadleyBradley! You’re free to start round 2 at your convenience.

Round 2 Start

Woooooo!

Alright, I don’t want this thread to unintentionally get pigeonholed to just be Marvel characters, but I also feel like I should pick someone thematically and culturally relevant before we all move on to the next thing, so please pick a song that encapsulates:

image

If you had told me that in 2021, the weird robot Avenger would have his own wildly popular TV show, I wouldn’t have believed you. But here we are. A longtime comics character, he has many aspects of his being to choose from. Cold, unfeeling robot? Father figure? Bad guy turned good? Yakety Sax hater?

I’ll put up a poll in roughly 24 hours, okaygo

This is one of the characters I struggled with finding a good choice for a couple years ago, but I think this time I’ve got one I’m happier with: Initiate by Haken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7pEXGCtnnk

  • Stilted, somewhat jerky/robotic rhythm paired with a cool and detached vocal style.
  • Several lyrics about senses and sadly looking down on the problems of the world (“I observe a world jarring in turmoil / A million people waging war at the hands of a god”)
  • “We’ll make this dream last forever and ever / Tears will run dry from my ever wandering eye / But I’m prepared to stay 'til my dying day” – reminds me of the comic series by Tom King which has a similar vibe to WandaVision, but with Vision in the role of trying to create/maintain the dream of suburban mundanity as it painfully unravels.
  • Multiple lyrics that fit an artificial life form wanting to experience human life (“Tell me, how does it feel to breathe?”, and “There’ll be no strings on me” referencing the song from Pinocchio).

Haken, always good @Thraeg One of my favorite bands.

However I’ll do you one better for the material

Select lyrics:
Lost in a world created by man
I can’t recall how it all began
Tell me, who am I?

Synthetic dreams and false memories
Is this all a lie

There is no escape
There is no way out of here
I’m locked in this universe
The real world will disappear

Am I no more than a program?
An artificial dream?

A parallel dimension, battle simulations
Mind over matter, brain stimulation

I don’t know if I exist.

Also bonus for the classic Atari sounds at the end, and the distortion used to give it an electronic sound.

Heh, another great choice! Ayreon was actually the first place my mind went for Vision, and it was the “related artists” section that jogged my mind about Haken.

Character: The astronauts.

The Song:

Note that Imogene Coca’s character goes from being named Shag to Shad. Shag? We can’t have her named after fucking!

Big dropoff in participation for round 2…

Any particular reason? Harder character to choose for? Don’t like something about the rules? Pace is too fast or too slow? Overlooked the posting? Just not interested in general?

Guessing weekend is a factor.

Well it’s a song about replicants and in it Hansi screams “vision” several times so clearly it’s a good fit (the Ayreon and Haken picks are so on point ugh)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5KXDzi1iVw

I gave the weekend for some more folks to join, but it looks a little sparse this week - I blame Vision’s relative lack of popularity in the zeitgeist.

I also suspect that maybe Rich misinterpreted the rules? Not sure if that was a submission for Vision or if he was submitting an entry for some astronauts characters. I don’t want to exclude, in case it was an earnest entry.

The Vision’s Theme Song
  • HAKEN - Initiate
  • Ayreon - Computer Eyes
  • The It’s About Time Theme Song
  • Blind Guardian - What is Time?

0 voters

All are welcome to vote, remember!

Haken and Ayreon are tied with one vote apiece! Breaking the tie and giving the slight edge to @CraigM for the beeps and boops. Congratulations!

So let’s shake things up from superheroes. Lets pick a character that everyone knows.

Bond. James Bond

This can be any version of Bond you like, even the Dalton one (which I am an apologist for).

Can one song capture the entire arc of the character? Is there one specific version you have a perfect song for?

Okay, this one may seem like an odd choice at first glance, but I think the lyrics actually map pretty well to Bond: A sociopath who learns social graces in order to close in and take what they want, treating people as expendable or threats to be eliminated. Only to realize as they close in to the end of the line that they’ve been manipulated themselves by others, and dying alone with their regrets, with no human connections.

Interesting, I definitely will have to give it another listen with that in mind, as Pink Floyd certainly would not have jumped out at me.

Well, it was either that or Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers. Felt like this would be the more unexpected of the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofBiQpB8U7Y

(Not an actual Bond theme; but seriously, pick a Bond movie, any Bond movie, and plug it in.)

Lets see, minor key, string chorus, periodic trumpets, steady 4/4 at ~130 BPM?

Yeah, that’s pretty Bond Theme Song.

Tough one here. Couldn’t find something that felt fitting in terms of both music and lyrics, but I’ll go with this, which at least has lyrics about deception, gambling, seduction, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFuVNncS36c

The only reasonable option:

https://youtu.be/Su1GPbkFEiw