Tales of the Unexpected

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Tales of the Unexpected; Strange music...
Tweet Topic Started: Dec 7 2011, 08:28 AM (717 Views)
Kerr Avon	Dec 7 2011, 08:28 AM Post #1
Senior Member Posts: 560 Group: Senior Members Member #52 Joined: December 13, 2006	In work today a conversation came up about old TV themes, and (of course) the Tales of the Unexpected was mentioned. If you don't know, Tales of the Unexpected was a 1970s series made up of self contained half hour episodes (i.e. with no reference to other episodes, each episode had different characters/storylines/settinges/etc) and was originally written by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, etc), but later episodes were penned by different writers, and each episode was a story with (supposedly) an interesting an unexpected ending. The stories were mostly set in (the then) modern day, but some were historical, and some were dramatic, others a little more surreal. Sme of the episodes were very good, some were awful and/or totally predictable, and most were somewhere in between. But the reason most people remember the program, and the reason I'm posting this, is the program's theme tune. I don't know what it is about this piece of music, but everybody (and I mean everybody, read the comments about this on the Youtube page if you think I'm exaggerating) young or old found this music somehow very disturbing. I don't know why, just that it did and does make me shiver somehow, which is amazing as there's no psychological connection (I mean I don't associate it with any trauma or anything), there's no words describing anything disturbing (there's no words at all, of course), it's just normal musical instruments playing a tune, but everybody who's heard it, then or now,says it's somehow frightens them. And no, this is not one of those puerile links that gives you a relaxing tune and when you're calm it then makes you jump by displaying a rotting corpse's head and a very loud noise, it's a genuine theme tune from the 70s program Tales of the Unexpected, and anyone who was in England in the 1970s will know and remember it. Listen to it, and see what you think. And if anyone here is musically minded, or has any idea what makes the tune so memorable, so horrible, so.. whatever it is, then can you shed any light on it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js7T-VTL91k



TNT737373	Dec 7 2011, 10:32 AM Post #2
Veteran Posts: 1,371 Group: Senior Members Member #567 Joined: July 21, 2011	As soon as I heard this song, the ominous rhythm reminded me of the music in "The Shining". Checked out the dates, Tales of the Unexpected ran from 1979 to 1988, the The Shining came out in 1980. Stanley Kubrick was already renown for his psychological films 2001 and Clockwork Orange before the show started, and the musical pieces from all these movies are considered strongly effective in drawing out certain emotions. I wasn't alive in the 70's or 80's, but I know The Shining freaked people of their minds when it premiered, ha. I've seen a lot of horror movies and in my opinion The Shining still has the most eerie soundtrack I've ever heard, it brings out very strange negative emotion, a disturbing feeling that "nothing is right". Not sure if their is a cultural connection here, or if it's just the way the musical notes affect a person's subconscious, but yeah the show's theme freaks me out and I've never even heard it before! ha Listen to the first minute of the show's theme again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js7T-VTL91k The way it just continues to loop over and over again merrily, I don't know it doesn't make you feel good, makes you feel sick... lol Then listen to the first minute of this song from The Shining: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F3QnKXg3-E This similar rhythm makes me feel like I'm a losing a grip on things also. I'm not familiar with music but the way these two songs were composed bring out feelings of paranoia, although they were intended for a happy go lucky theme, they just seem disturbing, lol. They drone on and on, makes you queasy. Good observation, if anybody's studying music they could definitely write a paper on this. Edited by TNT737373, Dec 7 2011, 10:39 AM.


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