Walk into any Farmer’s Market and call out, “Now the world don’t move…” and tell me that everyone over thirty-five doesn’t fervently respond, “… to the beat of just one drum!”

Go to one of the three remaining Barnes & Nobles in the world and sing out, “You take the good, you take the bad…” and you will hear the joyful reply, “… you take them both and there you have the facts of life!”

March right into a Whole Foods and declare, “What would we do baby…?” and listen as half the room replies, “… without us” while the other half says, “… without love.” (Before the internet we had to make our own decisions about such things, so don’t judge!)

These unbreakable threads connecting millions from each and every community across our great and diverse land is the legacy of decades of craftspeople performing at their peak. My brethren in the TV Theme Song Writing industry have created a veritable time machine out of pure aesthetics, transporting us all instantaneously and effortlessly back to the simple joys of childhood and the fictional characters who served as surrogate friends and avatars for vicariously exploring life’s thornier themes.

Yet I ask you this… Why don’t your children sing?

Because of the vicious and savage gutting of my industry, a decimation hidden from the average American by corporate greed, complacent journalists, and a naïvely assuaged populace! Well, it’s time to stand up and demand that your right to a collective innocence be respected, protected, and fostered for all future generations.

We’ve already lost so many in whom the seeds were not planted, replaced instead by the economic and practical efficiencies of a bunch of MIDI bleep-blop bullshit that some dude typed out on his laptop in between karate-kick farts soiling his days-old underwear.

Ours was an art form! 60-to 90-second on-brand gems bigger than a haiku but smaller than a verse-chorus-verse.

Our diction was middling to simple! Accessible to all ages and all backgrounds.

Our instrumentation was catchy but always secondary to the lyric! Our songs got stuck in your heart, not in your head.

Our themes ran deeper than a greeting card but shallower than an elegy! We mined concepts of love, happiness, family, and the simple kinds of existential questions one can ask to make it seem like you’re living an examined life without any of the dread that comes with living authentically.

But what does this current generation have? 15-second hooks dry-dogging their eardrums, withering their souls, and compromising their collective moral conscience. Or even worse, reconstituted pop songs licensed, sampled, and spliced by some hipster to the point of aural meaninglessness! How is one to build a human connection across time, space, and lived experience with TV theme songs so bereft of substance?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great time to score all those award-winning, prestige hour-long dramas that no one watches. But if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: theme music does not a theme song make. Without words, what is there to say? Try communicating to a fellow human being your shared affection for the theme music from St. Elsewhere, that harbinger of devastation to come. Go ahead. I dare you. I’ll watch while you awkwardly make discordant noises at each other and act like it means anything at all. I’ll watch while you ignore your dread and delude yourself into believing that what you are experiencing is a meaningful human connection.

And things have only gotten epically worse since Dr. Wayne Fiscus…

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by fat-bellied millions wolfing down the deep-fried glut of entertainment content clogging the arteries of the internet and what’s left of the airwaves.

Stand with the Theme Song Writers Collective as we call for a boycott of all TV content that does not contain a full and proper theme song before each and every episode. From limited series to 10-, 13-, 22-episode seasons, all of it! Do not watch it and they cannot profit! We will not grow as a people until this onslaught ends!

Stay current on the Collective’s efforts by regularly visiting my Etsy page where I’m also working to develop new revenue streams for those whose livelihoods have been lost.

  • Family Theme Songs. Limited by being a heretofore purely visual medium, why not translate your family crest into a family theme song to sing at all gatherings and major life milestones?
  • Professional Theme Songs. Fighting for a career change while your resume struggles to stand out amidst that pile of hundreds? A professional theme song can articulate your career accomplishments and character in ways that transcend text-based communications.
  • Dating Profile Theme Songs. Online dating is severely limited by its slavish adherence to pictures and short-form blurbs. A dating profile theme song is a far better tool to convey who you are and what type of companionship you seek.
  • Personal Theme Songs. Maybe your personal brand just isn’t quite popping anymore?

Help me! Please! I have no transferable skills. None. Yet I’ve given you so much joy and now I’m using coupons at Del Taco because you and your kids won’t stop watching The Good Place. Where’s the humanity I instilled in you all those years ago? Where?!