Can we talk about theme songs for a minute? Personal theme songs. You know, like a song you listen to get pumped up, or a little ditty that plays over and over in your head that follows you through life. In my opinion, everyone should have one.
Does anyone remember that show Ally McBeal from a few years back? That show sort of pioneered the art of the theme song. Remember when Ally danced for the first time with that weird computer animated baby to “Hooked on a Feeling” and got down?
“Hooked on a Feeling” became Ally’s theme song and a running gag on the show.
Or maybe you might remember more recently when Joseph Gordon-Levitt danced in the streets to Hall and Oates’ “You Make My Dreams Come True” in (500) Days of Summer?
My favorite part of the movie. Obviously. I’m a sucker for impromptu musical numbers.
Well, I got to thinking about theme songs today as I was walking down the blistering streets of Brooklyn in 98 degree heat, iPod-less, (because I accidentally left it at home) when one particular lyric to a song kept replaying over and over again in my head. I tried to push it away and will a better, perhaps cooler song to take its place, but it was no use. Katy Perry has taken over my life since I accidentally heard her song “Firework” in CVS yesterday.
So, there I was trying to cross the street as the song slowly began to creep in:
“You just gotta ignite the light, and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July
‘Cause baby you’re a firework
Come on, show ’em what you’re worth
Make ’em go “Oh, oh, oh”
As you shoot across the sky-y-y”
I tried to fight the song off as long as I could, but by the end of my walk home I was full-blown humming it and owning it <–Don’t judge me. I kind of felt like Emma Stone in the movie Easy A when she opens up the musical card from her grandma that plays “Pocketful of Sunshine” and she groans, saying how much she hates the song. Cut to a few hours later when she’s taking a shower and rocking out to it.
“I gotta pockeful, gotta pocketful of sunshine…I gotta love and I know that it’s all mine oh–oh–oh.”
If you listen to the rest of the lyrics to “Firework” you’re bound to feel that it’s a little silly:
“Do you ever feel like a plastic bag,
Drifting through the wind
Wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper-thin
Like a house of cards,
One blow from caving in?”
Do I ever feel like a plastic bag?! Okay, so the song is pretty weak on imagery, but I’ve got to admit, it still kind of inspires me, though.
Take for instance these lyrics:
“It’s always been inside of you
And now it’s time to let it through.”
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Dolly Parton: “The magic is inside you. There ain’t no crystal ball.”
If you’ve never heard Katy Perry’s song “Firework” have a listen here…03 Firework
So, tell me…
~The End.
Photos by IMDB, and Pinterest.
sarahbarkoff.com 
Blowin’ in the Wind – that is where the answers are my friend
🙂
Dear Sarah,
Mine is Happiest Girl in the Whole USA by Donna Fargo. Old..but perfect*:)
Lisa
Xoxo
That is awesome! I love it!!
I actually find myself singing the pocket full of sunshine when I get upset lol… 🙂
Haha, me too!
Honestly cringing as I type this…unflattering blush staining my cheeks…but it’s ‘I didn’t know my own strength’ by Whitney Houston…the lyrics really sum it up. But I still wish it was a cooler song reflecting a cooler life….like John Mayer ‘Assasin’. Great post as always!!
Two great songs, but I love the Whitney one!:)
I’ve constantly got a song, random songs, stuck in my head. I love music though. I don’t know if I’ve ever put much thought into what my theme song might be. Will definitely have to think about it some more though. 🙂
I know, there are just so many to choose from!
Great Post and now I have all those songs going on in my head – thanks for sharing! Have a Great Day:)
Haha!
Moon River by Andy Williams. Love, Dad
Of course it is!
I think I have more of a full blown sound track rather than a theme song.
Actually, me too!
I will say that I’ve been rockin’ Adele’s One and Only lately. Such a good song….
Awesome post 🙂 I have two, Count On Me, Bruno Mars and Bubbly, Colby Caillat.
I LOVE Bubbly:)
Keep Marching On by One Republic feat Timbaland, can pump and inspire me a lot! 🙂
Oooooh good one!
‘We are the Champions’ By Queen!
It sums up my life to date! 🙂
Love and hugs!
Prenin.
Um, awesome choice, Prenin! One of my faves, and I’m not just saying that:)
Summer is my favorite season, so right now my theme song is Walkin’ on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves!! : ))
Yep!
Great post! India.Arie. Strength, Courage & Wisdom… still…10 years later…
“Video” by India Arie is one of my other theme songs…
Definitely feel like different times in my life had different soundtracks, but, for the big picture, I’d have to go with Closer to Fine (Indigo Girls).
You’ll probably think I’m lying but “Closer to Fine” is also one of my theme songs!
Can`t go wrong with “Firework”. I guess my theme songs would be “All of the lights” or “Runaway” by Kanye West.
Glad to hear you like “Firework” too:)
My theme song changes constantly….
Me too….
Dancing Queen
Ah! I love that song! I requested it at my wedding:)
My theme song would depend on my mood I guess. Good mood Golden by Jill Scott. Bad mood, Shadow by Ashley Simpson.
P.S I love that you used the word ” ditty” lol
Bonnie! I love Jill Scott, did you know that?! And I love Ashlee Simpson! Haha
Not sure if I have a theme song, but I find that the theme from the Muppet Show and Sesame Street constantly get stuck in my head and I often find myself repeating the grrrr…aargh! from the end of a Buffy episode. Not quite sure what that says about me 🙂
It means you’re a kid at heart:)
Sarah, wow! Who of us hasn’t thought these same things but maybe never voiced it? How many times did I walk the halls in high school going to a basketball tryout or a wrestling match and not hear “Eye of the Tiger” playing in my head? Or how many times did I hit a down moment in a relationship with a girl as I grew up and not hear any number of songs from Journey echoing through my mind?
In a letter to Henry Mancini after she’d just seen “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” with the actual musical score attached, Audrey Hepburn had this to say: “A movie without music is a little bit like an aeroplan without fuel. However beautifully the job is done, we are still on the ground and in a world of reality. Your music has lifted us all up and sent us soaring. Everything we cannot say with words or show with action you have expressed for us.”
I think you’ve captured the essence of this with your simple post. We ALL have a soundtrack that plays in our lives. The songs repeat and then switch when the simplest amount of change is dropped into the coinslot of life.
Let me close by telling you what Audrey told Henry in her closing all those years ago: “You’re the hippest of cats!” 🙂
What a wonderful, well-thought-out reply! Awesome! And btw, I love “Eye of the Tiger!”
Ever since moving to Sweden I find myself playing ‘Born in the USA’ on repeat in my mind…sometimes out loud…sometimes at work…
At silent interludes, sucs as waiting for a traffic signal to change, waiting in a line, etc, ” Violaine” by the Cocteau Twins invariably plays in my head. “Rock for Light” by the Bad Brains, “Thorsens Eleven” by Superconductor, the Rondeau from Mozart’s Sonata for Piano and Violin, K.376, and the instrumental version of Roni Size & Reprazent’s “Brown Paper Bag” commonly pop into my head while performing mundane quotidian activities. My musical tastes run broad and eclectic, but these are the standards my inner jukebox defaults to.
By the way, great post.
“Carrier Wave” by Cartoon
fantastic post, because most people do find themselves a theme song!
I have several…part of them are religious themes. The recent one an from Iceland band and it start like this: Jumping up and down the floor, my head is an animal…it’s all kind of legend. but I emphasise at this line, that I am free to feel what I feel with no obligation to think about…