"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale" of a time when television shows began with awesome TV Theme Songs. "Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name" and sometimes you want to go back to when TV Theme songs were special. "Here's a story... of a lovely" time when TV Theme Songs served to identify, distinguish and set the stage for the television program that followed. "You take the good, take the bad, take them both and there you have" what unfortunately has become a lost artform. "Believe it or not", sadly it seems no effort or pride is taken in the TV Theme Song ever since Seinfeld proved a short synth-bass riff could be used instead. “Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!” This regular feature may not "make all our dreams come true", but it will remember some of the best TV Theme Songs from years past (with a focus on the '80s decade). "Come aboard, we're expecting you."
This time we will cover the theme song for It's a Living. "Life's not the French Riviera. Believe me. Life's not, a charity ball." It's a Living debuted in October of 1980 running for a total of six seasons and 120 episodes. It ran for two seasons on ABC before being cancelled, but ran four more seasons in first-run syndication from 1985-1989. The show follows the lives of several waitresses who work at a posh Los Angeles restaurant. It kept the same theme song for its entire run.
The It's a Living theme song was co-written by George Tipton and Leslie Bricusse. Tipton was a composer/arranger/conductor who worked in pop music, but also extensively in television including co-writing theme songs for Soap and its spinoff Benson, Empty Nest, and I'm a Big Girl Now in addition to It's a Living. Bricusse was a composer and lyricist who primarily worked in theater and film including the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and the title track from the 1964 James Bon film Goldfinger. Among much other work, he collaborated with Henry Mancini on the 1982 musical Victor/Victoria and 1986's Santa Claus: The Movie as well as with John Williams on songs for 1990's Home Alone, 1991's Hook and 1992's Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Bricusse did not write any other television theme songs that I am aware of.
Here are two openings for It's a Living that were used for the original network run and then the run in syndication both featuring the theme song...
It's pretty cool that this show earned a second life in syndication three years after the original series was cancelled. It has a pretty solid theme song as well. "OK we, may be less than wealthy. But then again we're young and healthy. And anyone who's young and healthy knows, that that's the way the traffic flows. It's a living."
Hope you enjoyed tuning in for another "episode" of TV Theme Songs!