Some songs, for better or worse, transcend mere popularity. Not just the national anthem, “Kumbaya,” and “Amazing Grace,” but a handful of TV theme songs whose catchiness is both iconic and mnemonic. It’s music that’s in the bloodstream of pop culture and stays unforgettable even as the arteries of memory harden. Theme songs can be silly, pretty, edgy—you name it. And it seems that we can tolerate even the silly ones—they’re forgiven but never forgotten. Some themes contain an important narrative that sets up the situation. How else would we ever know how Gilligan became stranded or the Brady Bunch became the earliest successful depiction of a modern family? Even the themes without words can say a lot. But do people take them seriously—as songs?
Charles Fox does; but he can sympathize with people who find them inane. “They turn on the television and hear someone whistling,” he says. “They just whistle along, and maybe don’t think about there being a live composer behind it.” Fox whistles a few notes from “The Andy Griffith Show.” “That’s not one of mine,” he points out. “It’s Earl Hagen.”
It’s ironic to hear the man who wrote the soundtrack to ‘70s television humming someone else’s theme song—and one from the ‘50s, no less. But Fox exudes a sense of humility that’s typical of classy geniuses. “I feel very grateful that I was able to have a little to do with Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Love Boat, Wonder Woman and all of those things. And I did a number of shows that never got on the air. I did one called Lenny and Squiggy which never got sold as a pilot. And there was the Potsie and Ralph spin-off; and one called Pinky Tuscadero. I even did a show called Family for Joe starring Robert Mitchum—his only television series. We did six episodes. It was pulled off the air.”
The vocalized television theme is a dying art. But while it lived, it kicked up its heels and took us to new heights of Pavlovian ecstasy. There’s no denying the giddy pop perfection of “Making Our Dreams Come True” from Laverne and Shirley or the goosebump-giving title tune from Love, American Style. But Fox’s television work is only scratching the surface. This is the man who, with lyricist Norman Gimbel, wrote “I’ve Got a Name” for Jim Croce, a song that most people believe was composed by the singer, so perfectly does it fit the troubadour’s rustic lyricism. The pair also wrote “Killing Me Softly,” a huge hit for Roberta Flack. It may be the only pop ballad that rivals the Carpenters’ “Superstar” as the best song ever about falling in love with a musician from a distance, as his music casts an emotional, even sensual, spell.
Fox has written a book that shares a title with that hit. Killing Me Softly: My Life in Music is based around letters Fox wrote from Paris when he was a young man studying composition. It’s both the story of one man’s success and a primer on the music biz in ‘60s and ‘70s Hollywood. “I wrote many letters,” says Fox. “Maybe about 200. I wrote about my lessons with [composition teacher] Nadia Boulanger; my life in Paris; the operas I saw; the concerts I saw.”
The letters are fresh-faced and endearing. They also paint a vivid picture of Paris in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. At times, these innocent missives become artfully cinematic. “Someone described them to me as being like seeing Paris in black and white,” he says, comparing the effect to a European film. The book follows Fox back to America, where he put his talent to work. He scored movies like Barbarella and Goodbye Columbus and raised the bar for television theme songs. What other composer could say he wrote songs for “The Bugaloos” and conducted the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague? Television reruns ensure that Fox’s reputation will keep spinning in the public consciousness.
“The record that drops on the jukebox at the beginning of ‘Happy Days’ was a one-of-a-kind,” he reveals. “If you slowed it down, you would see that it said ‘Happy Days—music by Charles Fox, lyrics by Norman Gimbel.’ That record is going to be inducted into the Smithsonian and it’s going to sit next to the Fonz’s jacket.” It’s proof that Fox’s music has worn well.
For more information on Killing Me Softly, go to the Scarecrow Press website.
