#939. Lineage of Song “Theme from M*A*S*H”

As a kid who grew up with a dad who loved M*A*S*H, listening to the instrumental theme song was just a fact of life. It was years, decades, before I finally saw the movie (both were based on a book by Richard Hooker, which I read a few years ago), and found out the theme song had lyrics! The film’s director, Robert Altman, contracted the job of writing the lyrics to his son, who subsequently, as the legend goes, raked in perpetual piles of cash when the song played weekly and then forever in syndication, thanks to the show.

#938. Lineage of Song: “Theme from Rawhide”

 

In Blues Brothers, the boys are challenged to play Country/Western music, an archaic term at this point (my parents always used it, too), but historically relevant. Western was basically traditional American folk, the original pop music (“Oh My Darling, Clementine;” “Home on the Range,” “Oh! Susanna”), part and parcel with the genre being a longtime staple in film and television, the classic cowboy way. So they didn’t do a Country song, of course, but a Western, the theme to the classic TV show. Today, like cowboy movies, Western doesn’t really exist in the pop culture, and Country is associated most with Southern living. Probably the cowboy hats the guys invariably wear are a relic of the Country/Western days.