Real Song Theme Tune

A Theme Tune which already existed as a well-known song. Most often, a cover of the original by an unknown artist is used, though the use of the original is increasingly common.

Tends to be more common for dramatic series, though it is not unheard of for the Sitcom. Rarely occurs in children's shows.

In some cases, the new version may become better-known than the original. In some rare cases, it might blow the first popular version out of the water, leaving future generations to assume that the song hadn't been all that popular beforehand. See The Lone Ranger below for an example.

This entry does not cover cases where the theme music already existed but is not well known in its own right. (Thus, the use of "As Time Goes By" in Casablanca does not count.) Most Anime have J-pop theme tunes that change every season, but that doesn't count, either - Anime Theme Song is its own "trope".

See also Repurposed Pop Song for a similar trope in advertising.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In the older times, this trope was frequently used by MTV and VIVA for the various anime they showed in Germany. This had some, well, "interesting" results, like the song "Star" from Nova International (which has the line "I wanna drive a big fat Cadillac" as part of its lyrics), set to the opening of Inuyasha, of all things.
  • They also changed one of the smoothest opening songs (Hellsing's "Logos Naki World") to some random heavy metal song by Keith Flint of the British techno group The Prodigy.
    • Speaking of Hellsing, the ending used the song "Shine" by Mr. Big, a band who was actually quite popular over in Japan.
• After War Gundam X uses Warren Wiebe's "Human Touch" as its ending from episode 1 to 26. The first 12 episodes use the English version and the rest uses a Japanese cover done by a female singer.
• And Yet the Town Moves uses a cover of Sugar Babe's "DOWN TOWN". It makes it into a Dancing Theme too.
• The voice actors of the three female leads of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day did a cover of "Secret Base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~ (10 Years After Ver.)," which was sung beforehand by Scandal. The song itself was a revival of the song "Secret Base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~," which was originally sung by Zone—and this version was covered by the cast of Kyou no Go no Ni, two and a half years before AnoHana! Since the lyrics were essentially the same, this means that the song has been used in at least two shows!
• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners used Franz Ferdinand's "This Fffire" for their opening.
• Another Shaft example is Dance in the Vampire Bund. It uses a cover of "Friends" by Rebecca.
• Deadman Wonderland's theme tune "One Reason" is a reworded version of Fade's song "Black Hearts and Dollar Signs"—performed by Fade.
• The Deltora Quest anime uses Delta Goodrem's "In This Life" for one opening, likely because both the Deltora Quest author and Delta Goodrem are Australians.
• Di Gi Charat Nyo!'s first opening is a cover of "Listen To Your Heartbeat" ^note  "Lyssna till ditt hjärta" in its original Swedish (and by proxy its English version) by the Swedish pop group Friends.
  • The first ending, "Equal Romance" is a cover of the 1989 CoCo song of the same name and was previously used as the 2nd ending of Ranma ½.
• Doki Doki School Hours used a cover version of "Furare Kibun de Rock'n'Roll" by TOM CAT as its ending theme.
• Eden of the East uses "Falling Down" by Oasis for its opening theme. Due to copyright reasons, the dub uses "Falling Down" for the first episode and generic J-pop for the rest.
• Drifters' opening theme is a remix of Minutes Til Midnight's "Gospel of the Throttle".
• Ergo Proxy's ending theme is "Paranoid Android" by Radiohead.
• While not an entirely straight example, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu uses a variation of Santana and Michelle Branch's song "Game of Love" for the ending.
• GO-GO Tamagotchi! uses a remix of Ariana Grande's "Baby I" featuring Japanese singer Taro Hakase as its second ending theme.
• The ending theme for Great Pretender uses the song from which the anime gets its title — Freddie Mercury's cover of The Platters' "The Great Pretender". The ending animation even takes many visual cues from Mercury's music video, and features cats modeled after Mercury's cats.
• Gunslinger Girl used "The Light Before We Land" by The Delgados for its opening theme.
• The obscure (in the West) anime Hanada Shonen Shi uses the Backstreet Boys songs "The One" and "Drowning" as OP and ED respectively.
• Every ending theme of Heaven's Lost Property from episode two onwards. Most of them are covers by the anime's cast members, but episode five's song ("Yuke! Yuke! Kawaguchi Hiroshi") is a re-recorded version by the original singer.
• Heaven's Memo Pad's ED is Mr. Big's "Colorado Bulldog", of all things.
• The ending theme of His and Her Circumstances is a cover of "Yume no naka e", a 1973 song by Yousui Inoue. In the West, it's known only through its use in this show.
• The opening theme of Ingress is "Tessellate" by alt-J.
• Initial D uses various Eurobeat tunes licensed from Avex Trax's Super Eurobeat library, just like its video game counterpart Initial D Arcade Stage.
• Each season of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure uses a new licensed ending theme song to pay homage to author Hirohiko Araki's allusions to rock, prog rock, and pop music. They have included:
  • Season 1 (Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency): Yes's "Roundabout"; different parts of this eight-minute long jam session were used over the end credits, and in rare occasions the instrumental intro bled into the scene right before a "To Be Continued" freeze-frame, leading to a video meme where dramatic events are cut off right as the screen turns sepia, freeze frames, the iconic "To Be Continued Arrow" appears, and the beginning chords of "Roundabout" begin.
  • Season 2 (Stardust Crusaders): the first 24 episodes use The Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian", while episodes 25-48 use Pat Metheny Group's "Last Train Home"
  • Season 3 (Diamond is Unbreakable): Savage Garden's "I Want You"
  • Season 4 (Golden Wind): episodes 1-19 use Jodeci's "Freek'n You"^note Try to keep a straight face when the 90s R&B bass line starts and then goes immediately into the lyrics "Every time I close my eyes / I wake up feeling so horny", while episodes 22-39 use Enigma's "Modern Crusaders".
  • Season 5 (Stone Ocean): episodes 1-37 use Duffy's "Distant Dreamer", while episode 38 uses Yes's "Roundabout".
• Knights of the Zodiac, the DiC dub of Saint Seiya, used the Bowling for Soup cover of A Flock of Seagulls' song "I Ran (So Far Away)".
• The Legend of Black Heaven uses a shortened version of John Sykes' "Cautionary Warning" both as the show's theme and as a song played by the main character...to save the universe.
• The opening theme of A Little Snow Fairy Sugar is a Japanese remake of "Sugar Baby Love," the 1974 debut single of the British band The Rubettes.
• Maison Ikkoku used Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again (Naturally)" as an OP, and "Get Down" by the same singer as the closing theme for episode 24. This was apparently a bit of cross-promotion that didn't pan out. The US release did not get the rights and doesn't use either.
• Maria†Holic uses a cover of Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Kimi ni Mune Kyun" for its ending theme.
• Mushishi uses "The Sore Feet Song" by Ally Kerr as its opening theme, and the second season does it again by using "Shiver" by Lucy Rose as its opening theme.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: Every episode ends with a different cover of the standard "Fly Me To The Moon"; several were performed by Megumi Hayashibara, both in and out of character as Rei Ayanami.
  • The Rebuild films have another cover of "Fly Me to the Moon", this time by Utada Hikaru, as well as a cover (once again by Hayashibara) of the Japanese standard "Tsubasa o kudasai", originally released by the group Akai Tori in 1971.
• Ōkami-san uses a cover of '78 Japanese pop hit "Akazukin-chan Goyoujin" ("Little Red Riding Hood Beware") as its ending theme. Given the motif of the show, an appropriate choice.
• The second opening theme to One Piece, "Believe", is a reworded version of Lolita's "Dreamin' of You".
  • One Piece Film: Z includes Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" and Nickelback's "How You Remind Me", both covered by Avril Lavigne.
• PaRappa the Rapper uses a remix of "LOVE TOGETHER" by J-funk band Nona Reeves (released the year before the anime's debut) as its first opening theme; the remix ended up being released as a single in its own right to promote the series.
• Paradise Kiss also utilizes Franz Ferdinand, specifically their song "Do You Want To" for its ending theme. Somehow, the American release managed to keep the rights for it.
• Most famously, TRF's music has made their way into infamy as Pretty Series theme songs, especially in the Pretty Rhythm: Rainbow Live continuity:
  • "Boy Meets Girl" appears as the first opening and "EZ DO DANCE" appears as the second opening theme. You'll see this song pop up a lot in the rest of the series (especially in King of Prism), but not as a theme song anymore. The former song was also used as the first ending theme of UFO Baby.
  • Speaking of King of Prism, their third installment Shiny Seven Stars has nothing but TRF music as their opening and ending themes.
• The opening theme of Rolling Girls is a cover of "Hito ni Yasashiku" by Japanese punk rock band The Blue Hearts, as sung by the voice actresses of the four main characters.
• Romeo × Juliet uses a Japanese translation of "You Raise Me Up" as an OP... then uses the original version in the finale.
• Serial Experiments Lain used "Duvet", by British rock band Boa, for its opening theme.
• The opening theme of the film version of A Silent Voice is "My Generation" by The Who.
• Speed Grapher uses Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" in the original Japanese version. The song doesn't appear in the English language version due to licensing issues.
• Supernatural: The Animation uses "Carry on Wayward Son" as its ED. The original Japanese release uses a cover version, and the US release uses the original by Kansas since Warner Bros. has the rights to the song in the first place.
• Texhnolyze had "Guardian Angel" by Juno Reactor as its opening theme.
• The Italian opening for the first of the Time Bokan series is a cover of The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star".
• The opening theme for Trinity Blood is a new recording of the 1993 BUCK-TICK song "Dress".
• Twin Princess of Wonder Planet: In the second season, Twin Princess of Wonder Planet Gyu!, the first ending theme is a cover of "Gakuen Tengoku" by the '60/'70s Japanese boy group Finger 5.
• Ya Boy Kongming! has both the opening and ending songs as covers of "Bulikirály" by Hungarian singer Jolly and "Kibun Jōjō ↑↑" by Japanese urban-pop duo Mihimaru GT respectively.

Comic Books

• Invariably, every time Iron Man's radio malfunctions, the song blaring out through his speakers is the Black Sabbath song of the same name.

Fan Works

• The fake movie Calvin and Hobbes III: Double Trouble uses "Calvin and Hobbes" by Pure Joy, fittingly enough.
• Sword Art Online Abridged, unusually for an Abridged Series (which generally just use the same theme song as the source material) uses the Thirty Seconds to Mars "This is War". Used in both the Title Sequence and as a Theme Music Power-Up in the Season 1 finale.
• Hellsing Ultimate Abridged uses "Party Party Party" by Andrew W.K..

Films — Animation

• Cars:
  • Cars features a cover of Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway" by Rascal Flatts during the montage of Mack driving with Lightning McQueen in his trailer along Interstate 40 through the central United States.
  • Cars 2 has Weezer's cover of The Cars' "You Might Think" playing as McQueen and co. travel to Tokyo for the World Grand Prix.
• Finding Nemo features a Robbie Williams cover of Bobby Darin's "Beyond The Sea" (originally Charles Trenet's French-language "La Mer") during the closing credits.
  • The sequel, Finding Dory, closes with Sia's cover of Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable".
• Hey Arnold! The Movie uses "2-Way" by Lil' Romeo and Master P during the end credits.
• Laika enjoys this trope:
  • The Box Trolls features Loch Lomond's cover of "Little Boxes" during the end credits.
  • Kubo and the Two Strings ends with Regina Spektor's cover of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".
• The Madagascar franchise infamously uses "I Like to Move It", originally released by Reel 2 Real in 1993.
• My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)'s opening theme is a ponified cover of "We Got the Beat", sung by Rachel Platten.
• Robin Hood (1973) underscores its opening credits with a cover of "Whistle Stop" by Roger Miller (who voiced the Rooster in the movie).
• Shrek (in)famously uses "All-Star" by Smash Mouth.
• The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie ends with Ween's "Ocean Man".
  • Its sequel, The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water, starts the end credits with N.E.R.D.'s "Squeeze Me".
• Studio Ghibli:
  • Kiki's Delivery Service uses two Yumi Matsutoya songs: it opens with "Rouge no Dengon" and closes with "Yasashiisa ni Tsutsumareta Nara".
  • Only Yesterday closes with a Japanese-language translation of "The Rose", originally a hit for Bette Midler.
  • Whisper of the Heart featured John Denver's "Take Me Home Country Roads" performed by Olivia Newton-John. The song figures in the storyline; as part of a school assignment, Shizuku writes a set of original lyrics to the song.
• Yellow Submarine used The Beatles' eponymous song.

Films — Live-Action

• Quincy Jones' "Soul Bossa Nova" was used as the opening credit theme for all the Austin Powers films. Jones even cameos as himself leading a band playing the song in Goldmember.
• The Dueling Banjo Arrangement by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith became famous for its appearance in Deliverance and is rarely mentioned without Deliverance also being mentioned, so much so that the song is often referred to as the song from Deliverance.
• Although not completely associated with the movie, Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" was long since forgotten until it was the main theme in The Sting.
• An American Werewolf in London used three different covers of "Blue Moon": Bobby Vinton in the opening, Sam Cooke during the Painful Transformation, and the Marcels for the end credits. Also used "Bad Moon Rising", by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
• Brazil used several versions of "Aquarela do Brasil" as its theme music. Jeff Muldaur does the comical, yodelling version heard on Sam's car radio; Bachianos Brazil Samba the one on the end credits; and no less than Kate Bush provided a further one which was supposed to be heard over Sam's first flying dream. For some unfathomable reason, the last one was cut, but can be heard on the soundtrack album.
• The Graduate used Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence", "April Come She Will", and "Scarborough Fair/Canticle". The best-known Simon & Garfunkel tune in the movie, "Mrs. Robinson", was debuted in the movie so it doesn't quite fit this trope.
• Apocalypse Now:
  • The Doors' "The End".
  • Also of course "The Ride of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner during the helicopter attack. Some viewers who weren't into classical music — among them, the inhabitants of the area where the sequence was filmed - assumed that the piece was written for the film.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey uses a climactic fanfare that comes from Richard Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra, written in 1896. The work wasn't that popular in the English-speaking world at the time, so it's understandable that many viewers assume it was written especially for the movie.
  • Ironically, the classical standards (including both "Zarathustra" and "The Blue Danube") were actually filler music used for test viewings while Stanley Kubrick was waiting for a score to be done - but when it came back, he realized he liked the classical music better, and it stayed in.
• The Beatles' live-action movies, Help! and A Hard Day's Night, use the eponymous songs.
• They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, set in The Great Depression, used a popular tune from that era, "Easy Come, Easy Go."
• Girls Just Wanna Have Fun uses a faster cover version of the titular Cyndi Lauper song.
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow ends with a cover of "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz.
  • As do both The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again. The latter memorably sung by Vincent Price.
• I Wake Up Screaming uses "Over the Rainbow" as its Love Theme. This is somewhat odd considering that studios in this era preferred to recycle songs from their own song publishers' catalogs, but I Wake Up Screaming was made by 20th Century Fox, and "Over the Rainbow" was, of course, written for MGM's The Wizard of Oz.
• David Lynch's Blue Velvet uses Bobby Vinton's song of the same name - not only as its title but also as a theme song.
  • Ironically though, the song that became more identified with the movie was Roy Orbison's "In Dreams".
  • Which in the movie is referred to as "Candy-Colored Clown" after its opening line "The candy-colored clown they call the sandman."
• Stand by Me uses the Ben E King song of the same name.
• Midnight Cowboy used Harry Nilsson's version of "Everybody's Talkin'".
• The Death Note films and "Dani California".
• The film Freddy vs. Jason used Ill Nino's song 'How Can I Live' as the main theme in the end credits. The song eventually came out on their 2003 album Confession, but they thought the song fit the mood of the film so well they decided to use it before release.
• Zack Snyder loves this (outside the DC Extended Universe).
  • Dawn of the Dead has Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around".
  • Watchmen used Bob Dylan's 'Desolation Row' as the theme over the credits — except that My Chemical Romance covered the rather folksy lyrics as a punk song, which worked surprisingly well. The very memorable title sequence had another Dylan song, though this time his original version — "The Times They Are A-Changin'".
  • Sucker Punch opens with a Dark Reprise of Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Emily Browning herself.
  • Army of the Dead's opening has a reprise of Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas!" by Richard Cheese and Allison Crowe.
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb:
  • For its opening theme tune, the film uses a lush arrangement of the old standard "Try a Little Tenderness" over B-52 aerial refueling footage, turning it into machine porn.
  • Closing the film with stock footage of nuclear explosions overlaid with Vera Lynn singing "We'll Meet Again" is also quite memorable.
• The Transformers films seem to have this strange obsession with Linkin Park's music and managed to utilize this with What I've Done playing in the credits of the first film^note it was also played in the background of another scene. Then it got subverted with New Divide being recorded specifically for Revenge of the Fallen, and was mixed into the film's actual score at various points. Dark of The Moon continued the tradition by having the song Iridescent as its theme, though slightly re-recorded to better fit with the film's grim mood.
  • There's also the liberal use of Green Day's "21 Guns" in Revenge of the Fallen. Bumblebee meanwhile, ends up using bits from The Cars' "Drive", Player's "Baby Come Back", Rick James' "Superfreak" and the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited" at different points in the films as part of his speech.
• Little Manhattan used "Only the Strongest Survive" by Elvis Presley as its opening credits song.
• Hatari! opens - after a cold opening - with Henry Mancini's arrangement of "Just for Tonight" by Hoagy Carmichael.
• Se7en uses a remix of the Nine Inch Nails song "Closer" in the opening credits and David Bowie's "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" for the closing credits.
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner uses "The Glory of Love".
• Down with Love uses the song of the same name, recorded decades earlier.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • The end credits of Iron Man is accompanied by Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", for obvious reasons.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) famously features "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone over the opening credits, with other classic 60's and 70's songs playing at various points throughout.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 continues this, with "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra for the opening.
  • All the MCU Spider-Man films use these: Homecoming uses "Blitzkrieg Bop" by The Ramones, Far From Home has "Vacation" by The Go-Go's, and No Way Home has "The Magic Number" by De La Soul.
  • Thor: Ragnarok has "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin play during the Batman Cold Open, with a reprise during the finale.
  • The traier for Thor: Love and Thunder features Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine", which was also used as the first ending song. Then comes Ronnie James Dio's "Rainbow In The Dark" playing as the extended credits roll.
• The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle uses "Be Ya Self" by Tarsha Vega during the first part of the credits.
• Sin City: "Cells" by The Servant predates the film and was not specifically made for it. Robert Rodriguez usually composes his own soundtracks, but he felt the song so evoked a Film Noir atmosphere that he used it for the trailer. Ironically, while it's the most well-known song from the film, it's technically not even the main theme.
• Moonstruck uses Dean Martin's "That's Amore" in its opening.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) has "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen play shortly after the title card.
• Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex opens with a version of Cole Porter's "Let's Misbehave" performed by Irving Aaronson. (Woody Allen later used the same recording in Bullets over Broadway.)
• The Exorcist famously uses "Tubular Bells, Part One" by Mike Oldfield. According to William Friedkin, this was by pure chance - he had scrapped the previous score and sought to replace it. While visiting the office of Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun, Friedkin picked up a record with a white label, put it on Ertegun’s turntable, and instantly decided it should be the theme to his film. Tubular Bells was already a success in Oldfield’s home country of the UK, where it hit the top 10; its use in The Exorcist replicated that success for Oldfield across the pond.

Live-Action TV

• ABC used "Love's Theme", an instrumental track by Love Unlimited Orchestra (Barry White's backing band) that hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1973, as the theme music for its golf coverage until the mid-90s.
  • After becoming and then remaining the number one network in the late 1970s, ABC based all their promotion for the 1978-79 season around "Still the One" by Orleans (though with new, TV-related lyrics in the verses).
• Absolutely Fabulous uses "This Wheel's on Fire". Julie Driscoll's recording of the song in the 60's was a hit in the UK, and she re-recorded the song for the show.
  • It was replaced by a cover by Jennifer Saunders and Adrian Edmondson.
• The Adventures of William Tell used the William Tell Overture ... With Lyrics. In the US it was replaced by a different part of the overture, which didn't sound like the Lone Ranger theme.
• Alex Rider (2020) uses "The World is Mine" by Samm Henshaw in the opening credits.
• There are at least two shows using "Alive & Amplified" by the Mooney Suzuki; The Aliens and That Mitchell and Webb Look.
• Alma Gêmea uses "Alma Gêmea" by Fábio Júnior, which was already a well-known song from the singer's self-titled 1994 album Fabio Jr.
• Anne with an E uses "Ahead by a Century" by The Tragically Hip.
• Arliss started out with the Four Tops' "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" in Season 1. Later seasons used Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want to Be With You".
• Arrested Development famously used Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" to signal despair.
• As Time Goes By uses a rendition of the song "As Time Goes By".
• Ax Men uses the Jimi Hendrix version of "All Along the Watchtower" for season 1.
• Barter Kings uses Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care of Business".
• Bad Robots uses Rednex's "Cotton Eye Joe"^*a Eurodance version of the American folk standard "Cotton-Eyed Joe when they need a song to annoy the hapless victim.
• Beat Shazam plays "Let's Groove" by Earth, Wind & Fire leading into the show, going out and going to / coming back from commercial breaks.
• Beauty and the Geek used Pet Shop Boys' "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)".
  • The Australian version uses Wes Carr's cover of "Is She Really Going Out with Him?"
• Betty White's Off Their Rockers uses Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It".
• The Benny Hill Show used a fast version of Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax" as its closing theme. They also used an instrumental arrangement of "Mah Na Mah Na" as background music for fast-paced comedy sequences.
• Big Love uses The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows".
  • In season 4, it was replaced with "Home" by The Engineers.
• Birds of a Feather uses Irving Burlin's "What'll I do". Initially, it used the version recorded by William Atherton for The Great Gatsby (1974) but it was later sung by two of the co-stars.
• Boardwalk Empire uses "Straight Up and Down" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
• Bondi Rescue Uses "In the Summertime" By Thirsty Merc as their Opening theme song.
• Border Security uses "Would I Lie to You" by Eurythmics.
• Bosch uses "Can't Let Go" by the Los Angeles-based indie electro soul band Caught A Ghost.
• Bosom Buddies used a version of Billy Joel's "My Life". (It's replaced by something generic and instrumental on the DVDs.)
• Bottom uses "BB's Blues" over its opening credits, and "Last Night" over the closing credits. Both covered by the show's house band, The Bum Notes.
• BrainDead (2016): "You Might Think" by The Cars is the Space Bugs' theme. Slow the song down by 16x, and it matches the sound of background radiation from the Draco constellation.
• Cake Boss uses a cover of "Sugar (Honey Honey)" sung by The Nerds.
• Campus PD uses The Clash's "Police on My Back".
  • Also used on Glory Daze.
• The Celebrity Apprentice uses "For the Love of Money" by The O'Jays.
• CSI: Each show in the franchise takes its Theme Tune from a song by The Who: "Who Are You" for the original, "Won't Get Fooled Again" for CSI: Miami, "Baba O'Riley" for CSI: NY, and "I Can See For Miles" for CSI: Cyber. As TIME Magazine said, "[the fact the album Who's Next has only eight tracks] provides the only natural curb on the expansion of the C.S.I. franchise."
  • It was lampshaded in an episode of Two and a Half Men, featuring a CSI parody which, for its Theme Tune, used The Who's wildly inappropriate "Squeeze Box".
• Charmed used Love Spit Love's version of The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?", which was first used in the movie The Craft, which was thematically similar to the first few seasons.
• El Chavo del ocho used Jean Jacques Perrey's "The Elephant Never Forgets" as its theme tune, which in turn is an arrangement of Beethoven's Turkish March (aka Marcia Alla Turca)
  • Chespirito's other series, El Chapulín Colorado, used Perry-Kingsley's "Baroque Hoedown"^note Best known in the U.S. and Canada as the theme to the Disney Theme Parks' Main Street Electrical Parade. as the closing theme.
• China Beach opens to the Diana Ross and The Supremes song, "Reflections".
• Chuck opens to an instrumental cut of "Short Skirt Long Jacket" by Cake.
• Class (2016) uses "Up All Night" by Alex Clare.
• Cold Case uses E.S. Posthumus' Nara (with added screaming).
• The US and UK versions of Coupling each used different covers of "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps". The UK original uses a version by Mari Wilson. The US remake uses a sped-up version by Cake.
• Community uses "At Least It Was Here" by The 88.
• The Filipino cooking show Cooking with Sandy Daza on TV5—then known as ABC 5—used "Invitations" by the English jazz-funk band Shakatak as its theme.
• COPS uses "Bad Boys" by Inner Circle as its theme.
• Cops: L.A.C. uses "Howlin' For You", by The Black Keys.
• Cosmos, the Carl Sagan documentary series, used Heaven and Hell [side 1, third movement] by Vangelis as its theme tune. Several other Vangelis pieces were used in the soundtrack, including "Pulstar" and "Alpha".
• Cousin Skeeter uses a rewritten version of 702's "Steelo" as its theme song. The band also makes a cameo appearance in the opening credits.
• Cover Up, a short-lived CBS action drama, used Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero" (originally from the film Footloose) as its theme.
• The BBC's coverage of cricket has traditionally been associated with "Soul Limbo" by Booker T and the MGs.
• Crime Story, set in the Rat-Pack '60s, used Del Shannon's "Runaway", redone by him with lyrics tweaked for the show.
• Dark (2017) uses "Goodbye" by Apparat as its opening theme. It was previously known for being used in Breaking Bad's season 4 finale.
• Dawson's Creek uses Paula Cole's "I Don't Want to Wait", except for DVD and most streaming releases and in Puerto Rico due to budget and licensing reasons, in which cases "Run Like Mad" by Jann Arden (who contributed to much of the show's soundtrack) was used. In 2021, Netflix reincorporated Cole's song to the intro by using a new re-recording.
• Dave's World used (a cover of) "You May Be Right" by Billy Joel.
• The first three seasons of The Dead Zone used Jeff Buckley's song "New Year's Prayer" from Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk.
• De Pies a Cabeza, a Colombian soap opera, not only used the song of the same name from Mexican group Maná, as theme tune. All the ambient music was taken from their studio album "¿Dónde Jugarán los Niños?".
• Deadliest Catch uses "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi.
• Dejémonos de Vainas, a very famous Colombian soap opera, used the song "Yo-yo" from Rose Royce.
• The Dennis Miller Show on HBO originally opened with Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".
• Designing Women used Ray Charles' "Georgia on my Mind".
  • The first 5 seasons used an instrumental that featured Johnny Carson's bandleader, Doc Severinson, on the trumpet. In the 6th season, the opening credits featured Ray Charles himself on the piano, singing, while the Designing Women hung around looking pleased.
• Death in Paradise, fittingly for a show set in the Caribbean, uses an instrumental cover of the 1964 ska song "You're Wondering Now" by Andy & Joey.
• Deutschland 83 used two different songs in different markets. The original German broadcast used "Blue Monday" by New Order, while the US and UK broadcasts used a German song of the era, "Major Tom (Coming Home)" by Peter Schilling.
• Diablero uses the song "Futuro" by Café Tacvba.
• Dirty Jobs uses "We Care a Lot" by Faith No More; some older episodes use a replacement written by the show's composer due to rights issues, though.
• Doctor Doctor used "Good Lovin'" by the Rascals.
• The Fox run of Don't Forget the Lyrics! used The Doobie Brothers' "China Grove". Yes, it did appear within the game itself on one occasion, although the contestant didn't end up picking it.
• The Drew Carey Show used "Moon Over Parma", "Cleveland Rocks", and "Five O'Clock World" at various times.
• Drive (2007) used "Can't Stop the World" by Gavin Rossdale.
• Duck Dynasty uses ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man" for the TV broadcasts of the first six seasons, and The 4onthefloor's "Workin' Man Zombie" on the DVD releases.
• The video game review show The Electric Playground has "Skybike 1" from the Skeleton Warriors video game as its title tune.
• Entourage uses "Superhero" by Jane's Addiction.
• Ever Decreasing Circles uses Dmitri Shostakovich's Prelude in D-flat major, Op.34 No.15.
• Extras uses Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tillerman" over the end credits, much like The Office example below.
• Family Matters used Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World"... for all of one episode, before switching to an original tune.
• Another Billy Joel example comes from The Fanelli Boys, which uses "Why Should I Worry" (Joel's contribution for Oliver & Company).
• The Fast Show: The first series featured Paul Whitehouse singing Esther Phillips' 'Release Me' as a theme, with the comedy element provided by Whitehouse's crooner being grotesquely distorted as if in a hall of mirrors.
• Film [year], The BBC's film review show, has an instrumental version of "I Wish I Knew How (It Would Feel to be Free)".
• A Fine Romance (1980's British sitcom) uses a version of the song "A Fine Romance" sung by the show's star Judi Dench.
• Formula One's theme is Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain", when shown on the BBC - a song that has always been somewhat of an unofficial theme for the sport.
  • And in Japan, when shown on Fuji Television, the theme is T-Square's "Truth".
• Frank's Place used Louis Armstrong's "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?"
• Frankie Howerd: Rather You Than Me opened and closed with Young Love by Frankie Avalon.
• Freaks and Geeks uses Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation".
• Friday Night Dinner uses the Punks Jump Up remix of "Animal" by Miike Snow.
• Friends used The Rembrandts' "I'll Be There for You".
• Funny You Should Ask used Pharrell Williams' "Happy" in season one. The second season switched it out for an instrumental soundalike.
• Game On, a BBC sitcom, used "Where I Find My Heaven" by the Gigolo Aunts.
• Gentleman Jack uses the song of the same title by O'Hooley and Tidow, which was written and recorded a few years previously.
• George Lopez opens every episode with "Low Rider" by War. The DVD release replaces it with a completely original tune that has voice clips of George's most used catchphrases.
• Get a Life (Chris Elliot's sitcom) opened every show with R.E.M.'s "Stand".
• Gilmore Girls opens with a version of Carole King's "Where You Lead," which was recorded with her daughter. The lyrics are slightly different than the original, as King had become disillusioned with its anti-feminist undertones and had stopped performing it live. When approached by Amy Sherman-Pallidino to use it as the show's theme, King said she'd rather re-record it, contacting the song's co-writer who helped tweak the lyrics to reflect a mother/daughter relationship.
• Gimme, Gimme, Gimme naturally opens with the ABBA song, albeit a Kathy Burke and James Dreyfuss cover.
• The first episode of each season of GLOW (2017) uses "The Warrior" by Patti Smith as its theme.
• The Golden Girls had a cover of Andrew Gold's "Thank You for Being a Friend" as its theme.
• Goodnight Sweetheart, of course, uses a cover of the 1931 song it's titled after.
• Grace Under Fire used Aretha Franklin's cover of "Lady Madonna" by The Beatles.
• The Great Pottery Throw Down originally used "I Can't Explain" by The Who. It now uses "Makin' Time" by The Creation.
• Grey's Anatomy used "Cosy On The Rocket" by Psapp with its opening credits.
• Happy Days used "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets before switching to an original theme song. The version of "Rock Around the Clock" the show used wasn't the original 1954 recording either: they had the aging Haley re-record the song.
  • "Rock Around the Clock" was the opening theme for the first two seasons. The original "Happy Days" song ("Sunday, Monday, happy days...") was always the closing theme. For the third season, they started using their own song at the beginning and end, probably to make more money off royalties. The version of "Happy Days" used as the end theme for seasons 1 and 2 was performed by Jimmy Haas, and when it became the main theme, it was replaced by a version from Pratt & McClain (and that version was replaced again for the show's final season with a more modern arrangement from Bobby Arvon).
    • It was also kept for the syndicated rerun version of the series that was circulated while the original series was still on the air. Entitled Happy Days Again, the original 1954 recording of the song by Bill Haley and His Comets was used instead of the 1974 re-recording.
• Hearts Afire used "That's the Way of the World" by Earth, Wind & Fire as one of its ending themes. It also derived its title from the song's lyrics.
• HEX used Garbage's "#1 Crush".
• The 2002-2004 opening theme of Tom Bergeron's (The) Hollywood Squares was Teena Marie's 1981 single "Square Biz" with new lyrics.
• Homefront, an early '90s drama set during World War II, had a rendition of Johnny Mercer's "Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive" as its theme.
• Hotel Hell uses the eponymous "Hotel Hell" by the Australian band Skyhooks, thus also making it a Title Theme Tune.
• Canadian talk show The Hour once used "Use It" by The New Pornographers, before switching to "The Good in Everyone" by Sloan (not coincidentally, both Canadian bands).
• House uses an instrumental version of "Teardrop" from Mezzanine by Massive Attack for its theme. In other countries a different song is used called 'House', composed by Scott Donaldson and Richard Nolan for the show. Once you've heard the Massive Attack version of the credits, the other one will really grate, because the cuts in the credits are perfectly timed to fit with "Teardrop", and they are a lot less powerful with a different song.
  • Notably, in one episode a cover of "Teardrop" performed by José González, complete with lyrics, is played at the end.
  • And, on the DVDs (at least the ones available for purchase in the UK), the two songs ("House" and the "Teardrop" instrumental) alternate with each episode.
  • Additionally, the intro for the first episode of Season 6 used "No Surprises" by Radiohead.
• Howie Mandel's comedy Howie Do It fittingly used the Montel Jordan song "How We Do It" as its theme song.
• How to Make It in America uses Aloe Blacc's I Need a Dollar.
• Human Giant uses "Romantic Rights" by dancepunk band Death From Above 1979.
• Hung (HBO) uses "I'll Be Your Man" by The Black Keys.
• Ice Road Truckers uses Aerosmith's "Livin' on the Edge" for its first four seasons.
• The Inbetweeners uses "Gone Up In Flames" by Morning Runner.
• InSecurity uses "The Sun Ain't Shining No More" by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
• The Insiders, an obscure Intrepid Reporter version of Miami Vice, famously used "Just a Job to Do" by Genesis.
• Intimate features "Fahrradsattel" by German punk band Pisse, which became a viral hit on TikTok in 2021, playing over the end credits of the majority of episodes.
• Iron Chef uses several songs from Hans Zimmer's Backdraft soundtrack.
• The Jack Benny Program used a medley of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Love in Bloom" as its opening theme, and "Hooray for Hollywood" as its closing theme.
• For a non-lyrical example, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia features Heinz Kiessling's "Temptation Sensation".
• Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer uses Isao Tomita's version of Claude Debussy's ""Arabesque No. 1"
• Jackass: The jangly polka is "Corona" by The '80s alternative punk trio Minutemen. An interesting choice, considering that it's a recording that's as old as most of the show's audience.
• Jam and Jerusalem uses Kate Rusby's cover of "The Village Green Preservation Society", originally recorded by The Kinks, as its theme music.
• Jejak Suara Adzan uses Rizky Febian and Aisyah Aziz' "Indah Pada Waktunya", which is already released as a single and used for a Titled Afterthe Song webseries by NET in early 2018.
• Joan of Arcadia used a version of "One of Us" that Joan Osborne specially re-recorded to fit the length and pace of the credits better.
• Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" was used as a theme by two very different shows- Freaks and Geeks and American Chopper.
• Joey used the penultimate part of "Sunny Hours" by Long Beach Dub Allstars.
• The game show The Joker's Wild in its first seasons used "The Savers" by Jean-Jacques Perry and Gershon Kingsley.
• FOX TV's short-lived legal procedural Justice used Warren Zevon's “Lawyers, Guns and Money” as its opening theme.
• Kids in the Hall uses "Having an Average Weekend" by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet and also use other music by the band for transitional scenes.
• Kitchen Nightmares uses "Misirlou" by Dick Dale.
• In the early 1980s, KQTV (the ABC affiliate in St. Joseph, Missouri) used the instrumental opening of Devo's "Snowball" to open their nightly news program. The viewer demographic for KQTV did not overlap greatly with the listener demographic for Devo, so most viewers probably thought it was original music.
• The Last Cop (Der letzte Bulle), a German Cop Show, uses Iggy Pop's cover of "Wild One" (also known as "Real Wild Child").
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver uses "Go" by Valley Lodge as its theme. Valley Lodge appeared in Last Week Tonight's second season finale to perform the song.
• Lie to Me uses Ryan Star's "Brand New Day" (no relation to the Sting song).
• Life Goes On: "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da", a cover version sung by the cast.
• Life on Mars (2006) uses David Bowie's "Life on Mars". The song is also a plot theme.
• The Lone Ranger: The opera William Tell reached the pinnacle of its popularity in The '30s. Everyone had heard of it, and more importantly everyone knew the overture by heart. Unfortunately, the use of the final movement of the overture as the theme song for The Lone Ranger associated it so strongly with the Western genre that the opera basically became unstageable in America. Because of this, some might assume the song doesn't fit the trope because the opera isn't popular now. In any case, it's also an example of Public Domain Soundtrack.
  • Lampshaded in a commercial for Jeno's Pizza Rolls, which itself was a spoof of a cigarette commercial that used the music. A man with a pack of cigarettes taps the shoulder of the announcer, saying, "I'd like to talk to you about that music you're using", whereupon Clayton Moore, dressed as The Lone Ranger, claps a hand on the shoulder of the second man, and says, "That's funny, I've been meaning to speak to you people about the same thing." Next to him is Jay Silverheels as Tonto, who asks, "Have a pizza roll, kemosabe?" and helps himself to quite a few of them. Watch it here.
• Louie uses "Brother Louie" by Stories.
• Mad Men uses "A Beautiful Mine" by Aceyalone and Rjd 2.
• Made in Canada used "Blow at High Dough" by The Tragically Hip.
• The Man in the High Castle uses "Edelweiss" from The Sound of Music, sung by Jeanette Olsson.
• Married... with Children uses "Love and Marriage" by Frank Sinatra (and was replaced on the DVD with a cheery, instrumental soundalike in both the opening and closing credits — save the end credits to the season four episode "Buck Saves the Day" where, instead of Peg and Al on the couch, it shows Al, Bud, Steve, and the kids still in the woods).
• Marry Me (2014) uses "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.
• The Masked Singer uses "Who Are You" by The Who.
• MasterChef Australia uses the Katy Perry song "Hot 'N' Cold".
• May to December uses "September Song" from Knickerbocker Holiday. (Which meant the ITV sitcom September Song couldn't.)
• Misfits uses "Echoes" by The Rapture.
• Episode 0022 of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood had Coach Saunders lip-syncing to Chicken Fat, which was written by Meredith Willson and performed by Robert Preston under commission by JFK. Impressively, they used the long version of the song.
• Mock the Week uses a short clip of "News of the World" by The Jam.
• Monday Night Football used a lyrically-modified version of Hank Williams Jr.'s 1984 hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight", before they retired it after Williams made some inappropriate remarks about President Obama.
  • Similarly, NBC's Sunday Night Football uses a theme adapted from Joan Jett's "I Hate Myself for Loving You".
  • And now the NFL Network uses a modified version of The Ramones' "Blizkrieg Bop" sung by Cee Lo Green for Thursday Night Football.
• TV coverage of the English Premier League uses "Fire" by Kasabian - except in the United Kingdom, where Sky use "Stop This Flame" by Celeste.
  • When ITV had the rights to the highlights of the above, they used "Beautiful Day" by U2. The same was used when they had the rights to the Football League highlights.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus uses John Phillip Sousa's "Liberty Bell" march as theme music, and such was their influence they've effectively made it their own. The original, like most Sousa marches, goes into a different melody which is nowhere near as well-known. The original also has no razzberries.
• The German TV show Na sowas! had "1980-F" by After The Fire. This is the very reason why this instrumental is so popular in Germany while remaining totally obscure everywhere else in the world.
• NCIS: New Orleans has the John Lee Hooker song "Boom Boom" as performed by Big Head Todd and the Monsters as the opening theme. This makes it the Oddball in the Series, since it's the only show in the franchise (of NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, and JAG) that uses a Real Song Theme Tune. Or to even have a theme song with lyrics.
• Newton's Apple, from 1983 to 1990, used Kraftwerk's "Ruckzuck", from their 1971 self-titled debut album, then from 1990-1994, a remixed version, then an original song afterwards. For the home video releases, they used a different but similar-sounding tune, due to licensing issues.
• The Newlywed Game used "Summertime Guy".
• Noah's Arc: The remixed variety of "Remember the Love" by Adriana Evans.
• The Norm Show used "Too Bad" by Doug and the Slugs.
• In a rare game show example, the short-lived Mark Goodson-Bill Todman game Now You See It used Quincy Jones' "Chump Change" as the theme on both versions. Bill Cosby also used this same music on The New Bill Cosby Show. Other game shows that used actual recordings as themes:
  • The Price Is Right: From 1956 to 1961, they used "Sixth Finger Tune", which was taken from a stage show called "Six Fingers For A Five-Fingered Glove".
  • Password: Its 1961-1963 theme was called "Holiday Jaunt" and was used as early as 1958.
  • Seven Keys: "Everything's Coming Up Roses".
  • Match Game: From 1962 to 1967, it was "A Swingin' Safari" by Bert Kaempfert. The pilot used the Billy Vaughn arrangement.
  • Eye Guess: For the first two years the theme was Al Hirt's "Sugar Lips".
  • The Face Is Familiar (a short-lived CBS nighttime show from 1966): "Brasilia" by Herb Alpert.
  • The Love Experts, a short lived game show-panel game hybrid hosted by Bill Cullen, used Bebu Silvetti's "Spring Rain".
• NUMB3RS used a sample from Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" in the first season.
• The Frugal Gourmet on PBS used a movement from "Water Music Suite Number 1" by Handel.
• The O.C. used Phantom Planet's "California".
• Oh, Dr Beeching! is a partial example: the tune is that of the music hall song "Oh! Mr Porter", but the words have been reworked so that instead of being a woman complaining to a train porter that she missed her stop, she's complaining to Dr Beeching that her stop doesn't exist any more.
• The Office (UK) uses a cover of "Handbags and Gladrags", as made famous by Rod Stewart.
  • In one episode, Ricky Gervais as Brent sang the song over the closing credits.
• The Osbournes used a cover of Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne, as remade by Pat Boone- in a jazz style.
• One Tree Hill used Gavin DeGraw's I Don't Want To Be as its theme song for its first four seasons. From Season 5 onwards, they did away with the credits.
  • A few seasons later, they brought back the theme song, this time having it performed by a different artist every week.
• Out of This World (1987) used David Lee Roth's cover of "Swinging on a Star", with reworked lyrics.
• Overhaulin' used Kicking Harold's "Gasoline" for the first few seasons, switched to an instrumental song with an Opening Narration, and switched back in 2014.
• Channel 4 have used "Harder Than You Think" by Public Enemy for their coverage of the Paralympic Games since London 2012. It's also the theme to The Last Leg, which started out as an aftershow of sorts for the Paralympics before becoming an independent show, though it continues to focus on the Games whenever they're on.
• Party of Five used "Closer to Free" by the BoDeans.
• Patriot uses "Train Song" by Vashti Bunyan in its first season and "Sure Shot" by Beastie Boys in its second.
• Peacemaker (2022) uses "Do Ya Wanna Taste It" by Wig Wam for its opening (set to a dance number at that).
• Peaky Blinders uses "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (in keeping with the series' anachronistic love of using rock for the interwar setting). The series mostly uses the original version by Cave but starting in Series 3 covers by various (mostly English) artists are heard (including Arctic Monkeys and Laura Marling). The song itself is quite fitting, since it details a mysterious person doing acts of kindness for mysterious and possibly nefarious reasons (much like Tommy Shelby). (Also, for a series focused so much on "Irish business", it's sure convenient that a red right hand is a symbol of Ulster...).
• Peep Show uses Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta", starting in season 2.
• The theme to The Peter Serafinowicz Show is the song Opening Trailer 2 by Syd Dale from the KPM stock music library.
• Pit Boss uses a hip-hop remix of Keith Mansfield's "Funky Fanfare" (as heard in those "feature presentation" bumpers in Kill Bill and Grindhouse).
• Please Like Me uses ‘I’ll Be Fine’ by Clairy Browne & The Bangin’ Rackettes.
• Points of View used to have an instrumental version of "When I'm Sixty-Four", presumably due to the lines "Send me a postcard, drop me a line/Stating point of view".
• Pretty Little Liars uses "Secret" by The Pierces.
• Primeval uses "All Sparks" by Editors for its ending theme.
  • Unless you're not in the UK. It recycles the opening theme for the ending theme in overseas broadcasts (at least in Australia it does).
  • "All Sparks" was only used for the televised broadcast of the show's first season. When season 1 was released on DVD, the credits used the opening theme.
• Portlandia uses "Feel It All Around" by chillwave artist Washed Out.
• Providence used Chantal Kreviazuk's cover of the Beatles' "In My Life".
• The first two Quatermass series used "Mars - The Bringer of War" from Holst's The Planets.
• The Ranch uses "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys", a well-known country song. It fits the "good ole boy" vibe of the show, and it's a nod to Debra Winger's role in Urban Cowboy.
• Reba, the eponymous sitcom of country singer/actress Reba McEntire, used a partial rewrite of her single "I'm a Survivor".
• The Rebel Billionaire: Branson's Search for the Best, the globetrotting reality show by borrowed mostly the instrumental section of the theme from the film Live and Let Die.
• Rescue Me (The BBC version, not the American firefighter show) uses a male cover of the Fontella Bass song of the same name as its theme.
• Rescue Me, the American firefighter show, also falls under this: it uses "C'mon C'mon" by the Von Bondies. While thematically fitting for a series dealing so heavily with how tough men deal with loss, it is a little weird that such an emphatically New York series would use a song by such an emphatically Detroit band.
• Resident Alien uses "Bilgewater" by the defunct and rather obscure band Brown Bird, chosen by the show's creator when searching for songs by by artists he had never heard before. The pilot episode has a longer intro with a version of the song that includes lyrics, the remaining episodes use an insrumental only.
• Spanish late-night show La Resistencia uses "Hail to the Chief" by Prophets of Rage.
• Roswell used a shortened version of "Here with Me" by Dido.
• Russell Howard's Good News uses an abridged instrumental of "Fast Fuse" by Kasabian.
  • The Russell Howard Hour, the successor series to Good News, uses "Ill Ray (The King)", also by Kasabian.
• The Royle Family used "Half the World Away" by Oasis.
• Salem uses the song "Cupid Carries a Gun" by Marilyn Manson.
• The Brazilian soap opera Salve Jorge (known in Spanish-speaking countries as La guerrera), used the 2012 hit "Girl On Fire" by Alicia Keys as its theme song.
• Sam's Game uses "As Good as it Gets" by Gene.
• Scrubs used the song "Superman" by Lazlo Bane, with a cover being used in the Postscript Season. The version of "Superman" used as the theme is faster and in a different key than the original version.
• Search Party uses "Obedear" by Purity Ring.
• The Secret Life of Us uses "Death Defy" by Motor Ace.
• Los Simuladores, being an Argentine show, uses Astor Piazzolla's "Cité Tango".
• Sharpe uses an extended version the traditional British military song "Over the Hills and Far Away", using the lyrics from George Farquah's 1706 play The Recruiting Officer. Although written during the War of Spanish Succession, they are fortuitously fitting for Sharpe's career, which also took him "to Flanders, Portugal and Spain" (well, actually Waterloo is in Brabant, but that's close enough to Flanders).
• Southland uses an instrumental version of Dulce Pontes' version of Canção do Mar.
• Soul Man (and possibly another show) used, appropriately enough, "Soul Man". Doubly appropriate as the lead actor is also one of The Blues Brothers.
  • Hangin' with Mr. Cooper used "Soul Man" for its second season before changing to an original theme song.
• Smallville uses Save Me by Remy Zero.
• The Sopranos uses "Woke Up This Morning (Chosen One Mix)" by electro-blues group Alabama 3. The difference between the original and the Chosen One Mix (both of which predate their use in The Sopranos by a couple years) is that the former is in the first person, and the more famous latter version is in the second person.
• Star Trek: Enterprise was the first of the series not to have a symphonic theme tune — it used "Faith of the Heart", performed by Russell Watson. (A more well-known version of the song is performed by Rod Stewart on the soundtrack of Patch Adams.) In the third and fourth seasons, they decided something was missing - a thumping backbeat... in what was essentially a country song.
  • The closing credits music, now known as "Archer's Theme", was originally intended to be the Enterprise theme, and was written by the same man who wrote the theme for Deep Space Nine. Executive Meddling ensued, and it was replaced with "Faith of the Heart". This is what that would have looked like. An even earlier concept, however, was a throwback to other Trek series, including the Opening Narration and footage of the ship.
• Starting in its third season, the Discovery Channel show Storm Chasers used Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" as its theme tune.
• Strike Back series 2 and onwards use "Short Change Hero" by The Heavy, like Borderlands 2 does below.
• Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye used "Who I Am" by Jessica Andrews.
• Sugar Rush uses Blondie's "One Way or Another".
• Super Nanny uses Men at Work's "Be Good Johnny" as its theme: it's actually a re-recorded version from a Colin Hay solo album, but it sounds practically identical to the original (not that surprising, since Hay sang lead vocals on the original version).
• Suits uses "Greenback Boogie" by Ima Robot as its theme.
• Supernatural, as stated above, uses Kansas' "Carry on Wayward Son", though the series only used it in the first season before it was relegated to being the theme for the Season Finale recap.
• The Australian-set BBC sitcom Supernova used I Can See for Miles by The Who.
• Teachers uses Belle and Sebastian's "The Boy With the Arab Strap".
• That '70s Show uses a cover of Big Star's "In the Street". Obscure, but kinda famous in an underground way. From season 2 on it was performed by Cheap Trick.
• Third Watch used "Keep Hope Alive" by the Crystal Method.
• This Old House on PBS used Fats Waller's "Louisiana Fairy Tale" from 1979 to 2003 before it switched to an original theme.
• Tomorrow's World had a number of memorable original themes over the years, but for a while around the millennium it used "In Pursuit of Happiness" by The Divine Comedy. Just the instrumental bit though, thereby avoiding the lyrics about millions dying in plague and murder.
• Tour of Duty, a Vietnam War series, used the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" over the opening credits.
• Top Gear uses "Jessica" by the Allman Brothers Band.
  • The presenters lampshaded their use of the song during the second America special, when the original song came on over the radio. "On tonight's program..."
  • Originally the closing theme was "Out of the Blue" by Elton John.
• Top of the Pops went through several theme songs over the years but frequently returned to CCS' instrumental cover of "Whole Lotta Love".
• Train Man (2004):
  • The live-action drama used the Electric Light Orchestra's "Twilight" as its theme song (alluding to the opening animation for the convention Daicon IV).
  • The first episode used "Mr. Roboto" by Styx.
• True Blood uses "Bad Things" by Jace Everett.
• Twin Peaks used an instrumental version of Falling by Julee Cruise.
• 2 Broke Girls uses "Second Chance" by Peter Bjorn and John.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): This version mixed the classic theme with The Grateful Dead's "Dark Star".
• Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place originally used the song "Blister in the Sun" by Violent Femmes. It switched to an original song in season 3 at the same time the show's name was changed and the pizza place was dropped.
• Soul Train used several real songs as its theme: most famously "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)" by MFSB. Though "TSOP" was only used for nine of the show's 28 seasons (six of which used remixed versions), most fans consider it the theme song for the show.
  • TSOP was originally written to be the official song to be named "Soul Train", but it was decided not to closely associate it with the show. Mother Father Sister Brother (MFSB) released it as a single, becoming the first disco song to reach #1 on the Billboard charts.
• Ultraman Tiga used Take Me Higher by Dave Rodgers as its opening theme, albeit translated into Japanese with Rodgers' supervision.
• Unhappily Ever After, a sister show to Married... with Children, used a "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune sung by Bobcat Goldthwait in its first season, but switched to Ray Charles' "Hit the Road Jack" after that.
• Veronica Mars used "We Used to Be Friends" by The Dandy Warhols. For the third season, The Powers That Be switched to a slower, ostensibly Darker and Edgier version of the song.
• The Victory Garden on PBS used "Gaspe Reel" (The Hammered Dulcimer)" by Bill Spence up until 1991.
• Vikings uses (a shortened version of) "If I Had a Heart" by Fever Ray.
• Vision On, a BBC children's series of the '60s and '70s, used Al Hirt's "Java" over its end credits.
• W5 , a Canadian television news magazine, used a portion of Supertramp’s "Fool’s Overture" for a time, starting in the 70s.
• Walt Disney Presents (The Wonderful World of Disney) used an instrumental medley of well-known songs from Disney movies, including "When You Wish Upon a Star", "Whistle While You Work", and "Zip a Dee Doo Dah". At least one of the tunes — "It's a Small World" — was from the theme parks.
• Weeds uses "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds—the original in the first season, a different cover by a different artist every episode after that.
  • Including, on at least one occasion, a French version.
• Whale Wars uses The Smashing Pumpkins' "Bullet with Butterfly Wings".
• What I Like About You used the song of the same title, covered by Lillix.
• What We Do in the Shadows (2019) uses the song "You're Dead" by Norma Tanega as its theme song. This song is also used in the titles of the 2014 movie by the same title.
• Wings: Piano sonata No. 20 by Franz Schubert.
• The Wire uses Tom Waits' "Way Down in the Hole". Each season is done by a different artist - season one was by The Blind Boys of Alabama, season two was Waits' original version and season three was by The Neville Brothers. Season four's version was a specially recorded R'n'B version to represent the show's shift in focus to children on the streets. Season five was sung by Steve Earle, who plays Walon in the show.
• The Wonder Years: The Joe Cocker version of "With a Little Help from My Friends".
• You Bet Your Life (Groucho Marx's Game Show) used an instrumental version of the song "Hello, I Must Be Going/Hurray for Captain Spaulding" from the classic Marx Brothers musical Animal Crackers.
• The short-lived Tim Brooke-Taylor sitcom You Must Be the Husband used Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" as its intro music.
• The Young Ones used a cover of Cliff Richard's song of the same name sung by the cast.
• Young Sheldon uses "Mighty Little Man" by Steve Burns. Yes, the one from Blue's Clues.
• NYC 22 uses Jay-Z's "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)".
• The opening theme of Retro Game Master is a remix of "Ode to Joy".
• True Detective uses "Far from Any Road" by The Handsome Family in season 1 and "Nevermind" by Leonard Cohen in season 2.
• This is surprisingly common in soap operas in countries such as Portugal, where the song used will usually be from The '80s. As of this writing, nearly all the soaps on channel 1 use a Real Song Theme Tune.
• It's also a recurring trend in the Philippines to use existing pop songs for their theme music, even going so far as to name the shows after said songs.
• ITV's coverage of the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France used "Rendez-Vous '98" by Jean-Michel Jarre and Apollo 440, a remix of the former's 1986 single "Fourth Rendez-Vous".

Pinball

• The Getaway: High Speed II features ZZ Top's "La Grange" as the main theme music.
• The main background music for Twilight Zone is an instrumental version of the 1982 song "Twilight Zone", by Golden Earring.
• As one would expect, Star Wars Episode I uses John Williams' score from the movie.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation has Dennis McCarthy's reworked version of the original Star Trek theme.
• Three of Daft Punk's soundtrack tunes are used in the TRON: Legacy pinball.
• The Addams Family, unsurprisingly, uses the original theme.
• Creature from the Black Lagoon has five '50s pop hits licensed for its main theme: "Rock Around the Clock", "Get a Job", "Summertime Blues", "Willie and the Hand Jive", and "Red River Rock".
• Data East Pinball's Back to the Future uses ZZ Top's "Doubleback," along with Huey Lewis and the News' "The Power of Love" and "Back in Time".
• Red & Ted's Road Show uses country singer Carlene Carter's "Every Little Thing" for its signature theme. Appropriate, given she voices "Red" in the game.
• Bally's Playboy pinball has Cy Coleman's "Playboy's Theme", from the TV show Playboy After Dark, as its main tune.
• Gottlieb's Rocky plays "Gonna Fly Now", otherwise known as the "Rocky theme".
• Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure plays "The Raider's March" and other songs from the series.
• Junk Yard uses an instrumental version of "Money (That's What I Want)" by The Beatles.
• Data East's Secret Service features "Nobody Does It Better" (from The Spy Who Loved Me), along with music from Mission: Impossible, Get Smart, Secret Agent Man, and other spy programs.
  • At the end of a game, the table plays the chorus from "Nobody Does It Better" while lyrics are shown on the display.
• Aside from using James Horner's theme song for its main play, Apollo 13 uses Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" for its Jackpot theme.
• No points for guessing what real song gets used in the various Star Wars pinball games.
• Stern Pinball's Shrek plays the first verse of Smash Mouth's "All Star".
• Data East's The Who's Tommy includes twenty-one songs from the Broadway musical, sung by the original performers.
• Bally's 1976 KISS pinball plays a short version of "Rock and Roll All Nite" when starting a game, and ends the game with a tinny version of "Shout it Out Loud".
  • Stern's 2015 KISS features ten songs from the band, including "Hotter Than Hell," "Black Diamond," "Lick It Up," "Love It Loud," and "Detroit Rock City."
• Not surprisingly, Guns N' Roses (Data East) features nine of the band's songs, including "Welcome to the Jungle," "Night Train," and the exclusive "Ain't Going Down". Also, Slash confirms that the game has eight more original recordings which were taken off the masters.
• Lethal Weapon 3 lets players choose from C+C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)", ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man", or the game's own music.
• NASCAR features Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55", a popular song among NASCAR fans.
• Unsurprisingly, The Wizard of Oz uses music from the MGM movie it's licensed from, most notably "We're Off to See the Wizard".
• And the Gilligan's Island pinball uses the theme tune from the television series.
• The Party Zone plays several Real Life songs throughout the game, such as "Pinball Wizard" by The Who, "De'funkt" by Defunkt, "Feelings" by Morris Albert, "Come Fly with Me" by Frank Sinatra, and "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix.
• The Pink Panther pinball plays Henry Mancini's famous song during multiball.
• Unsurprisingly, AC/DC features twelve songs from the band, and smart players can choose different songs at appropriate times to maximize their score. The Limited and Premium Edition tables even include a more advanced sound system to augment the experience.
• Crüe Ball features three Mötley Crüe songs; "Dr. Feelgood" plays during the title screen and bonus level, "Live Wire" plays in a cutscene before the demo gameplay, and "Home Sweet Home" plays when you beat the game. The rest of the in-game music consists of cycled PCMs by arcade Pinball composer Brian Schmidt. The Motley Crüe license was attached to the game very late in development, so it's likely there wasnt much room for more than just three Crüe songs.
• The main game theme in Spy Hunter and WHO dunnit (1995) is Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn".
• Metallica features a dozen songs for the player to choose from, including "Creeping Death", "One", "Master of Puppets", "Battery", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", and "Fade To Black". An Expansion Pack update added "Ride the Lightning" and "Blackened".
• As one would expect, Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball plays the Looney Tunes theme.
• Gottlieb's Haunted House plays segments of Toccata and Fugue in D minor throughout the game.
• Stern Pinball's Mustang has a soundtrack of road tunes from Sony; the Pro edition has four songs, while the Premium and Limited Editions add four more. Selections include "Ace of Spades" (Motorhead), "Free Ride" (Edgar Winter), "Drag City" (Jan and Dean), and "My Own Worst Enemy" (Lit).
• Harlem Globetrotters On Tour plays "Sweet Georgia Brown," the Globetrotters' theme, at the start of each game.
• Rollergames uses a remixed version of the TV show's theme for its main game music. The design team wanted to use the original music, but Williams' German distributor refused to carry the machine if that had happened.
• The music for Full Throttle is from the British metal group Redline, who compose the music for the television coverage for the annual Isle of Man T.T. motobike races. The game's main theme is "King Of The Mountain" from the album Vice.
• Sega Pinball's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein lets the player choose the game theme from either the movie soundtrack or Edgar Winter's rock anthem "Frankenstein".
• Stern Pinball's Harley Davidson games play instrumental versions of "Born to Be Wild" and "Bad to the Bone".
• Ghostbusters Pinball plays an instrumental version of the theme song throughout the game. though the montage music from the first movie kicks in during multiball.
• The main theme for Maverick The Movie is Clint Black's "A Good Run of Bad Luck".
• Last Action Hero plays "Big Gun" by AC/DC, "Angry Again" by Megadeth, and "Real World" by Queensrÿche.
• Dutch Pinball's The Big Lebowski includes songs from the actual movie soundtrack, including Bob Dylan’s "The Man in Me," Kenny Rogers' "Just Dropped In," and Santana's "Oye Como Va."
• Game of Thrones features the title theme from the television series.
• In Godzilla (Stern), Blue Öyster Cult's "Godzilla" accompanies the eponymous character's multiball mode.
• Pulp Fiction features five different songs from the film's soundtrack - "Misirlou" is its main theme, "Jungle Boogie" plays during Brief Case Boogie, "Comanche" plays during Pawn Shop Panic, "You Never Can Tell" plays during Twist Contest and "Son Of A Preacher Man" plays (albeit heavily muffled) during The Shot.

Podcasts

• The Brian & Jill Show:
  • It uses the song "I Want to Singa", originally from a Looney Tunes cartoon (though most today would know it from the first episode of South Park), as the theme song for their first week. The plan had been to choose different theme song each week but instead had a listener or someone in the show's crew choose a new theme song each day.
  • Their trivia game, "No Apparent Reason," gets the William Tell Overture while their "What's News" segment gets What's New Pussycat by Tom Jones.
• The Cool Kids Table game Bloody Mooney uses "Shadows of the Night" by Pat Benatar.
  • Sequinox has "Just Be Friends" by Megurine Luka for the first arc and filler episode. Starting in the second arc it uses an original theme composed by Emily E. Meo.
• The outro theme for Escape from Vault Disney!, "Walt Disney and You", debuted in a ubiquitous promo for 1980s Walt Disney Home Video VHS tapes before Tony repurposed it for his podcast.
• Kit Harrison's Machine CAST starts with Pendulum's "Showdown" and ends with "The Other Side".
• My Brother, My Brother and Me used to have "(It's a) Departure" by John Roderick and The Long Winters as its theme, but as with the Monday Night Football example, this was replaced with another song after Roderick's involvement in the "Bean Dad" fiasco.

Pro Wrestling

• Pro Wrestling This Week, a syndicated wrestling program in the late 1980s with Gordon Solie and Joe Pedicino, used the intro to the Eddie Murphy hit "Party All the Time" (which was also the theme for Knoxville, TN's Continental Championship Wrestling).
  • Heck, lots of local Pro Wrestling shows used well-known songs as their themes. WWE used to use Michael Jackson's "Thriller," the Pointer Sisters' "Jump," and later Animotion's "Obsession" as themes. And Memphis's CWA promotion used a techno version of Also sprach Zarathustra (most famous for its use in 2001: A Space Odyssey).
  • However, CWA isn't even close to having the most famous use of Also sprach Zarathustra in wrestling. That would belong to Ric Flair, who used it for practically all of his career. See the "Sports" folder for still another notable use of the tune.
• Smoky Mountain Wrestling used real songs as entrance music for pretty much everyone; a full list can be found under the trivia section of the SMW page. Owner/booker Jim Cornette sort of got permission to do this from financial backer Rick Rubin (no one complained while SMW was running) but never actually got the rights to use any of those songs, this may be part of the reason that only 13 of the 200 TV episodes have been uploaded to the WWE Network, since those songs have to be edited out.
• WWE has used several "real" hard-rock and heavy-metal songs as theme tunes for their various programs, including Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People", Papa Roach's "To be Loved", Nickelback's "Burn it to the Ground", Green Day's "Know Your Enemy", or Shinedown's "Enemies." When they don't use a real song, they often use a Thematic Theme Tune recorded by a popular artist such as SmackDown's mid-2000's theme, "Rise Up" recorded by Drowning Pool, and Raw's former theme from Triple H's "Reign of Terror" era, "Across the Nation" by Union Underground.
  • This was pretty much the case for most wrestlers' entrance themes until the music industry started cracking down on "unauthorized use" of copyrighted music and demanding royalties. After that, in all but a few exceptions (Ex. Hulk Hogan shelled out of his own pocket for the rights to "Voodoo Child"), organizations either switched to a Suspiciously Similar Song version of songs (Sting's late run WCW music was Metallica's "Seek and Destroy" with the Serial Numbers Filed Off), original tunes, or public domain ("Macho Man" Randy Savage's use of "Pomp and Circumstance").
    • Examples in the mid-1980s WWF included Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" for Hogan, Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" for the Junkyard Dog, Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" for Lauper's protege Wendi Richter, and Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" for the U.S. Express (Mike Rotunda and Barry Windham, real-life brothers-in-law). The first few WrestleMania events also used real songs, including Phil Collins and Phillip Bailey's "Easy Lover" for the first WrestleMania, and Aretha Franklin's "Who's Zoomin' Who?" for WrestleMania III. Also, "Ravishing" Rick Rude used "The Stripper" by David Rose as his entrance theme during his "Chippendale" gimmick.
    • The biggest exception would be ECW, who continued to use real songs as entrance themes as part of their image as an "outlaw organization". Even their TNN/SpikeTV theme counted (White Zombie's "More Human Than Human").
    • A more recent WWE exception was its use of t.A.T.u.'s "All the Things She Said" as Victoria's entrance music from 2002–2004.
  • CM Punk started using "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour during the "Summer of Punk" in Ring of Honor and eventually returned to using that, with people in the industry remarking that since Vince McMahon hates paying music royalties, it meant Punk got exactly what he wanted to re-sign for the company. His first WWE theme, "This Fire Burns" by Killswitch Engage is a subversion; it was originally recorded for WWE's Wreckless Intent compilation album, used for their 2006 Judgment Day and briefly by Randy Orton. It later appeared on the band's album As Daylight Dies under the shortened title "This Fire".
• One of Hulk Hogan's early WWF themes was an instrumental version of Bonnie Tyler's "Ravishing".
• Jim Fullington was already calling himself "Mr. Sandman" and later "The Sandman" years before Metallica came out with the song "Enter Sandman". Afterwards, he would often use it as his entrance music, including when he made his return at ECW One Night Stand 2005 to a huge crowd pop.
• Tommy Dreamer usually used "Man in the Box" by Alice in Chains in ECW.
• The National Wrestling Alliance's weekly online show, NWA Powerrr, uses Dokken's "Into the Fire" as its theme.
• Apartheid-era Foreign Wrestling Heel Colonel DeBeers typically entered to "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses.
• Alter Bridge's "Metalingus", which Edge had used as his theme from 2005 to 2012, was originally recorded for the band's first album. Prior to that he was using Rob Zombie's "Never Gonna Stop". Come 2022, Edge becomes darker and edgier and uses "The Other Side" from the band's fifth album, which would then continue to be used by The Judgment Day even after Edge gets kicked out of the group.
• "We are One" by 12 Stones was already charting on Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Songs chart when The Nexus started using it.
• Bryan Danielson used "The Final Countdown" by Europe during his time in the indies. When he became Daniel Bryan in WWE, he used "Ride of the Valkyries" for his first year in the company, and switched to a rock orientation of the song afterwards. Since signing to AEW, company president Tony Khan has paid for "The Final Countdown" to be used at least twice for special occasions.
• Damien Sandow used "Symphony from the New World" during his time in WWE's old developmental league Florida Championship Wrestling, and "Hallelujah Chorus" once on the main roster.
• Chris Jericho's theme song in NJPW and AEW is "Judas" by his band Fozzy.
• Jungle Boy, now wrestling as Jack Perry, used "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora as his entrance music on the indy circuit, but was forced to drop it when he joined AEW. But in January 2021, AEW president Tony Khan went out of his way to buy the rights to the song so Jungle Boy could use it again.
• This seems to be becoming a trend for AEW, if not yet a habit:
  • Shortly before Khan bought the rights to "Tarzan Boy," he did the same for Tom Waits's "Ol' 55," though for a different reason: the song was used in the tribute video for Mr. Brodie Lee following his untimely death, so Khan bought the rights so that the video would never have to be edited in the future.
  • Then in March 2021, he bought the rights to "Where Is My Mind?" from The Pixies for use as Orange Cassidy's new theme music. A year later, Khan managed to get the rights to "Jane" by Jefferson Starship, the music Cassidy had used in the indies.
  • Jon Moxley began using "Wild Thing" by May 2021, first using the original version by The Troggs, then using the cover version by X.
  • All Out 2021 would use an instrumental version of Cypress Hill's "Champion Sound".
  • In mid-2023, AEW managed to get rights to "The Final Countdown", allowing Bryan Danielson to use his indy theme again.
• Doink the Clown used an arrangement of "Entrance of the Gladiators" after his Heel–Face Turn.
• Randy Savage used "Pomp and Circumstance" during his entire career.
• Scottish indie wrestling sensation Grado used Madonna's "Like a Prayer" as his entrance music for years, complete with audience song-a-long and dance choreography.
• Ronda Rousey uses a version of "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett.

Radio

• A Prairie Home Companion uses a version of "Tishomingo Blues" with rewritten lyrics. Nobody really seems to remember the original.
  • The original 1970s-80s run of the show opened with Garrison Keillor singing Hank Snow's "Hello Love", a #1 country hit in 1974.
• The CBC Radio international affairs program Dispatches uses "What It Is" by Mark Knopfler.
  • Likewise the CBC show As It Happens, syndicated in the US on PRI, uses "Curried Soul" by Moe Koffman.
• Conservative talk radio seems to like this trope.
  • Rush Limbaugh used the instrumental parts of "My City Was Gone" by the Pretenders as his theme. The show that Rush's syndicator placed in his former time slot, The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, used this music until late May 2022...
  • ...when Travis & Sexton replaced it with the opening instrumental parts of "My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit.
  • Dr. Laura used "New Attitude" by Patti LaBelle as an opening theme.
  • Sean Hannity currently uses "Comin' to Your City" by Big & Rich. He's previously used "Independence Day" (Let Freedom Ring) by Martina McBride and "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" by Toby Keith.
  • Mark Levin uses the instrumental riff from "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park. He also uses it as his closing theme, with Ray Charles's "America the Beautiful" immediately preceding it on Fridays only. Since the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, he's gone from "Somewhere I Belong" to "The Star-Spangled Banner" (i.e., the U.S. national anthem) during the first-hour opening.
  • For his national late-night Sunday show, Cincinnati host Bill Cunningham uses George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone".
• The Dave Ramsey Show, a Christian-oriented financial advice talk radio show best known for its host's extreme aversion to debt, uses Raphael Ravenscroft's famous sax solo from Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" as its opening theme, and closes each hour with Pink Floyd's "Money".
• The late-night paranormal/conspiracy radio show Coast to Coast AM uses "Chase", Giorgio Moroder's instrumental theme from the movie Midnight Express, as its opening theme. Its closing theme is "Inca Dance", an instrumental by jazz/world music/New Age group Cusco.
• Jean Shepherd opened and closed each episode of his long-running local New York radio show with "Bahn Frei" by Austrian composer Eduard Strauss.
• The theme song for most The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy media is "Journey of the Sorcerer" by the Eagles. It appeared as the opening theme for the television and radio programs and appears in the scene introducing the titular guide in the 2005 film adaptation.
  • According to The Other Wiki, the reason "Journey of the Sorcerer" was chosen was because Douglas Adams wanted a theme song that was both futuristic-sounding and suggestive of a traveler at the same time. Adams felt that the banjo gave it an "on the road, hitchhiker-esque feel".
• Ectoplasm (2000): An instrumental excerpt from Nyimbo Yakwatu by Robson Banda and the New Black Eagles (a Zimbabwean group popular since the 1980s).
• The BBC comedy radio series Clayton Grange uses 'I Want More' from Can's 1976 album Flow Motion.
• The Unbelievable Truth: the instrumental part of 'My Patch' by Jim Noir.
• Clark Howard, a money expert and consumer advocate, uses Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy."
• The Northern German pop station NDR 2 used existing instrumentals as theme tunes for two of their shows:
  • Der Club with Wolf-Dieter Stubel used "1980-F" by After The Fire before Na sowas! made it popular nation-wide.
  • The Plattenkiste used "Rovers Return" by The Korgis as the opening and closing theme. Yes, the same Korgis that brought us the Stealth Parody "Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime".
• The News Quiz uses "The Typewriter" by Leroy Anderson.
• "And as the Minute Waltz fades away, it's my great pleasure to welcome you to Just a Minute!"
• The Filipino Christian radio station DWXI—owned by Mike Velarde as part of his El Shaddai charismatic movement—uses the theme song from Somewhere in Time as its background music for the opening prayers on most if not all of their programmes.

Sports

• Many sports teams use existing songs as "fight songs" and entrance themes:
  • The Chicago Bulls used "Sirius" by The Alan Parsons Project's to introduce the starting lineup for home games starting in the victorious Michael Jordan age.
  • Inspired by the Bulls and "Sirius", the Dallas Mavericks adopted the Epic Instrumental Opener of The Who's "Eminence Front" for their player intros.
  • Mariano Rivera, closing pitcher for the New York Yankees, would leave the bullpen to the sound of "Enter Sandman" by Metallica. It became so identifiable with him that when he retired, some headlines read "Exit Sandman".
    • "Enter Sandman" is also the entrance music for Virginia Tech's football team at home games.
    • Metallica is also used by a team of their area, the San Francisco Bay, as the San Jose Sharks hit the ice to the sound of "Seek & Destroy".
  • The University of Tennessee uses "Rocky Top" by The Osborne Brothers as its unofficial fight song. It's far better known than UT's official one.^note "Down the Field"
  • The University of Arizona pep band frequently plays Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild^note cats" at sports events, practically as a secondary unofficial fight song. ^note  "Fight! Wildcats! Fight!" being the official, with "Bear Down, Arizona!" being the much more well-known unofficial fight song.
  • Jazz standard "Tiger Rag" (AKA "Hold That Tiger") is used by multiple schools with the "Tiger" nickname, including Auburn, Clemson, LSU, Missouri and Princeton.
  • The "Tiger Rag" isn't the only existing song that LSU uses. It also obtained the rights to the Broadway tune "Hey, Look Me Over", gave it new lyrics, and calls its version "Hey, Fightin' Tigers". As in the case of "Rocky Top" and Tennessee, it's not the official fight song,^note that would be "Fight for LSU" but is at least as well-known.
  • LSU also uses Garth Brooks's version of "Callin' Baton Rouge" as its football team's entrance music. As you might guess, LSU is in that city.
  • Another Broadway tune, "Step to the Rear", was given new lyrics by the University of South Carolina's head football coach and athletic director at the time, Paul Dietzel,^*who had previously been LSU's head coach, though before the school began using "Hey, Fightin' Tigers" and became the school's official fight song as "The Fighting Gamecocks Lead the Way".
  • Another example from South Carolina: During the pregame at home football games, the Gamecocks enter the field to the "Dawn" section of Also sprach Zarathustra (another use was mentioned in the "Professional Wrestling" folder above).
  • However, the most iconic Gamecocks music nowadays is "Sandstorm" by Darude, played periodically to ignite the crowd. So iconic, in fact, that some Carolina alums use the track at their weddings.
  • The University of Wyoming adopted the 1912 tune "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" as an unofficial school song in 1961. It went on to become one of two official fight songs and is now the Cowboys' and Cowgirls' only official fight song.
  • "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor is used by the University of Memphis.
  • "Davy", one of Cornell University's two official fight songs, is "Give My Regards to Broadway" by George M Cohan, with different lyrics. Among other uses, it is played whenever the football team scores a touchdown.
  • The New England Patriots use Ozzy Osborne's "Crazy Train" as their home entrance music.
  • The Detroit Pistons used the opening instrumental riff from "The Final Countdown" by Europe as their entrance theme for many years.
  • The New York Knicks use "Come with Me", Puff Daddy's contribution to the American Godzilla remake.
  • The Memphis Grizzlies use "Go Harder" by Future as their theme song. During time outs at home games, they play "Whoop That Trick" from the Hustle & Flow soundtrack to pump up the crowd.
  • This was played with in a commercial for the Visa Check Card. The Pittsburgh Steelers come marching out on the football field to the sweet sound of "Lovin' You" by Minnie Riperton. Then a flashback shows why: a member of the stadium's sound crew is at a record store attempting to buy a CD of "Who Let The Dogs Out" with a personal check, but is turned down for lack of ID.
  • The University of Pittsburgh Panthers' every victory, no matter how minor, will be heralded from the students' seats with the main chorus of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline". This has led to the mascot gaining the unofficial name of Caroline.
    • "Sweet Caroline" is also hugely popular among Boston Red Sox fans, and is played during the 8th inning of every home game.
  • In an inversion of the trope, the British football team Everton (based in Liverpool) traditionally uses the theme music from the TV series Z Cars, which was set in Liverpool.
  • And Liverpool Football Club has famously used (fellow Liverpudlians) Gerry and the Pacemakers' 1963 cover of "You'll Never Walk Alone" as their team's song ever since Liverpool won the FA Cup Final in 1965, though the song originates from the 1945 musical Carousel.
  • This trope isn't limited to teams. Major League Baseball regularly uses popular songs as entrance music for batters and closers (i.e., relief pitchers who are normally brought in to end games). Perhaps the most famous use of this was the New York Yankees' use of "Enter Sandman" as entrance music for Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera.
  • It's also not limited to entrance music...
    • For example, after every home football game at West Virginia University (and at many other Mountaineers games and other WVU events), the band will play John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads", long an unofficial state song and since 2014 one of several official state songs. At football games, the team will sing the song and invite the crowd to join in. (Denver himself performed the song at the 1980 opening game for the Mountaineers' current stadium.)
    • Some baseball teams play popular songs as rally songs during the seventh-inning stretch. One notable example is the Baltimore Orioles' use of another Denver song, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy". (Notably, shortly before his death in 1997, Denver showed up to dance on top of the Orioles' dugout during the playing of the song.)
    • The Pittsburgh Pirates break out Styx's "Renegade" whenever they're looking to finish off an opponent.
    • Madison Square Garden traditionally used the coda to Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" for Down to the Last Play situations, while Jay-Z and Alicia Keys's "Empire State of Mind" was typically the last song to be played after a game.
    • The NHL has goal songs, such as The Fratellis' "Chelsea Dagger" for the Chicago Blackhawks and AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock" for the Columbus Blue Jackets (that one, to synchronize the song's cannon fire with the one featured in the team's arena!).
    • The NHL also has victory songs, with a particularly notable example being Laura Branigan's "Gloria" after St. Louis Blues wins during their 2019 Stanley Cup run (though they retired it once they raised the Stanley Cup banner at the start of the next season).

Video Games

• The Ur-Example of this for video games is Frogger, released in 1981. It was the first game to explicitly use real-life songs that weren't in the public domain, though it did have some of those as well. Most of them, even the public domain songs, were removed for modern re-releases and replaced with generic themes; the use of real music was unlicensed, as licensing music for video games simply did not exist at the time.
  • The music when the game starts is the Japanese folk tune "Inu No Omawarisan" ("The Dog Policeman").
  • The main background theme is the original Japanese opening theme from the anime ''Araiguma Rascal''. Naturally, this one wouldn't have been obscure to Japanese kids who watched the cartoon, but since the show's theme was changed for international release, it went completely unnoticed even in other countries where the show aired.
  • Additionally, among the little jingles that play when you safely guide the frogs to their homes, three of them are snippets of other anime themes: "Oshiete" from Heidi, Girl of the Alps, "Hana no Ko Lunlun", from the show of the same name (split into two jingles), and "Ore wa Arthur" from Moero Arthur: Hakuba no Ouji. Also included are snippets of "Camptown Racing" and "Yankee Doodle".
• Konami's early arcade game Pooyan uses The Bear (known in Japan as Mori no Kumasan') as its game start tune and an English folk song called The Ear Song as its in-game BGM.
• The 1982 Sega arcade game Pengo features the late 60's-early 70's electronic instrumental "Popcorn" which was famously (though not originally) recorded by a group called "Hot Butter" in 1972. Unlike Frogger, usage of this song was licensed, but a later version uses an originally-composed tune.
  • "Popcorn" is also used as the background music for the Shareware PC game Digger (itself a clone of Dig Dug).
• Another 1982 Sega arcade game, Super Locomotive, uses the 1979 song "Rydeen" by Yellow Magic Orchestra. This tune has also gone on to appear in several other computer games, such as Stryker's Run and Daley Thompson's Decathlon. A later port of Super Locomotive, for the Sega Genesis Mini 2, swaps out the song for "Ryzeen" by the tribute band Oriental Magnetic Yellow.
• Many Rhythm Games live on this trope. Ranging from Konami's Bemani entries to Sega's maimai to Andamiro's Pump It Up to Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin to IGS's Danz Base to even Nintendo's Donkey Konga. Pop a coin in and/or press start and chances are there are at least a few songs in the game lifted from anime or J-pop (or in Andamiro's case, K-pop)^note Danz Base's case is interesting as its catalog includes a mix of western, K-pop, J-pop, Mandopop, and anime song licenses, not to mention the inclusion of music from parts of the world other than east Asia and the western world. Pop'n Music, maimai and Taiko no Tatsujin in particular are excellent examples of the trope, with a rich repertoire of Anime themes and J-pop music in their list.
• An inevitable trope for Licensed Games. Usually, the game will at least use the show's theme song (or in the case of a movie, the Award-Bait Song) for the opening theme. If it's based on a movie, well, expect the other songs and scores from the movie to be used in the game as well.
• Both Twisted Metal: Black and Conflict: Vietnam use "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones.
  • The use of "Paint it Black" in Conflict: Vietnam might have been intentional, to promote a mood similar to and as a Shout-Out to Tour of Duty.
• Burnout:
  • Burnout 3: Takedown uses "Lazy Generation" by The F-Ups.
  • Burnout: Revenge features a remix of "Break on Through" by The Doors.
  • Burnout: Legends has "Shot Down" by Nine Black Alps.
  • Burnout Paradise uses Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City" in all its glory.
  • Burnout CRASH! uses "Crash" by The Primitives.
• Perfect Dark Zero uses real songs by Morisson Poe for its opening and ending themes; "Glitter Girl (Evil Side)" and "Pearl Necklace", respectively. The Nightclub Stakeout mission features Kepi and Kat's "Limelight".
• Cool Spot uses The Surfaris' "Wipe Out" as its opening theme.
• In keeping with its 80's cop show theme, LEGO City Undercover uses "Walkin' on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves during its opening cutscene.
• Urban Chaos: Riot Response uses Metro Riot's "Modern Romance" as its intro and main menu music. The riff is fitting, but the lyrics are about STDs and rejecting love.
• Rock n' Roll Racing, as the name suggests, used a number of actual classic rock songs: George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone", Black Sabbath's "Paranoid", Deep Purple's "Highway Star", Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn" (also used in Spy Hunter), and Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild". Admittedly, since it is an SNES game, they're instrumental arrangements, but they're arrangements that push the SNES' sound chip to its limits (largely thanks to Tim Follin's sound programming).
  • Even more impressive is that he did this without the manual, and actually did a better job than the people who developed the program Tim used. When Shigeru Miyamoto heard it he wanted to know how it was done.
  • The Genesis version adds Golden Earring's "Radar Love".
• The Need for Speed series has had many theme songs.
  • The first time a theme song was used was in Hot Pursuit 2 with two songs by Hot Action Cop: "Goin' Down on It" and "Fever for the Flava", both bowdlerised for the game.
  • Underground 1 uses "Get Low" by Lil' Jon and The Eastside Boyz and Ying Yang Twins as its theme song.
  • Underground 2 uses "Riders on the Storm (Fredwreck Remix)" by Snoop Dogg and The Doors as its theme song.
  • Most Wanted 2005 has two theme songs: "Nine Thou (Grant Mohrman Superstars Remix)" by Styles of Beyond, and a specifically-made song, "Shapeshifter" by Celldweller and Styles of Beyond.
  • Carbon has "Hard Drivers" by Ekstrak as its theme song.
  • ProStreet doesn't have a specific theme song, but many of the most recognizable songs in the game were made by Dutch musician Junkie XL. The most known of these songs is "Castellated Nut", as it has an appearance in World, thanks to the Mitsubishi Eclipse ELITE.
  • Undercover, like ProStreet, doesn't have a specific theme song, but by far the most recognizable songs of the soundtrack are Combichrist's remix of "Never Wanted to Dance" by Mindless Self Indulgence and "The Mark Has Been Made" by Nine Inch Nails.
  • Shift has as its theme song "Kalemba Wegue Wegue" by Buraka Som Sistema and Pongolove.
  • Nitro has as its theme song "Code of the Road" by Danko Jones.
  • Hot Pursuit (2010) has "Edge of the Earth" by Thirty Seconds to Mars.
  • Shift 2: Unleashed has "Night of the Hunter", also by Thirty Seconds to Mars, as its theme song.
  • Most Wanted (2012) has "Butterflies and Hurricanes" by Muse, though only in the opening sequence.
  • Rivals has "Troublemaker" by Haezer, and "Lootin' in London" by RDGLDGRN.
  • the 2015 reboot has "Night Riders" by Major Lazer, Travi$ Scott, 2 Chainz, Pusha T, and Mad Cobra.
  • Unbound makes use of A$AP Rocky's involvement and uses an original song from him titled "Shittin' Me".
• Fat Princess has, of course, "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot, which is heard as the credits song.
• SSX Tricky uses "It's Tricky" by Run–D.M.C..
• The arcade game Bomb Jack uses the ending theme from Spoon-obaasan (the anime version of Mrs Pepperpot) as the first round theme. The second round theme is The Beatles' "Lady Madonna".
  • The C64 version likewise uses "Magnetic Fields, Part 2", and its sequel uses the ThunderCats theme.
• When you get an extra life in the arcade game Mr. Do!, the round (or "scene" as the case may be) is cleared and you see an intermission with the Astro Boy theme playing in the background.
• Every FIFA game since Road to World Cup '98 has had a soundtrack of popular contemporary music, including one of these.
• MechAssault 2 has "Getting Away with Murder" by Papa Roach. "Right Now" by Korn is used for the final boss.
• It's become somewhat of a tradition in the Borderlands series for each game to have one of these:
  • Borderlands uses Cage the Elephant's "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" as the game theme in both the opening video and commercial trailers. It fits the setting quite well. Champion's "No Heaven" is also used in one of the trailers and during the end credits.
  • Borderlands 2 uses "Short Change Hero" by The Heavy in its opening, and the same band's other recognizable song, "How You Like Me Now?", in the credits.
  • Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! uses "Black Dragon" by The Vines for its opening and "What Makes A Good Man" by The Heavy for its credits.
  • Each episode of Tales from the Borderlands uses a different song for its opening and credits theme:
    • Zer0 Sum uses "Busy Earnin'" by Jungle.
    • Atlas Shrugged uses "Kiss the Sky" by Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra.
    • Catch a Ride uses "Pieces of the People We Love" by The Rapture.
    • Escape Plan Bravo uses "To the Top" by Twin Shadow.
    • Vault of the Traveler uses "Retrograde" by James Blake for its intro, and "My Silver Lining" by First Aid Kit for its credits.
  • Borderlands 3 uses "Put It On The Line" by The Heavy for its intro and "Girl on Fire" by Alicia Keys for its credits.
• Some of the Paradox Interactive games use classical (and in the case of Victoria: An Empire Under The Sun and Europa Universalis, period) music. The most famous example is probably Hearts of Iron and its use of "Ride of the Valkyries".
  • Especially pronounced for Cities: Skylines, which has numerous radio stations (some which are DLC) that contains licensed music from numerous bands. Activating Streaming Mode completely disables these stations to protect the streamer's channel from an accidental copyright strike.
• inFAMOUS features "Silent Melody" by Working for a Nuclear Free City.
  • The two trailers for the third game in the series - inFAMOUS: Second Son - heavily feature Dead Sara's cover of Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box". Not surprising, considering the game is the first to be set in a real city: Seattle.
• Similar to Borderlands 2, Knack also uses How You Like Me Now? in its credits.
• Omega Boost has this in spades: The Japanese release features "Shade" by Feeder, in US, "Otsegolation" by Static-X, and in Europe, "Fly" by Loudmouth. And this is just the openings. It has three diferent endings as well: "Dip in the pool" by Ismeel (apparently a Japanese Enka), "Dreamer" by Cast, and "The Road" by Loudmouth. The Australian version only seems to use Dreamers, for some reason—plus, it seems to be a recording of the song made specifically for the game.
• R-Type Final uses "Piano Smasher" by Blue Man Group for the American version and "Proud of You" by Hekiru Shiina for the Japanese version as its credits theme.
• Street Fighter X Tekken featured "Honest Eyes" by Black Tide as its Image Song and theme for the first cinematic trailer. Subsequent trailers featured "Knock Me Out" by Street Drum Corps, "In Love With You" by Jared Evan and "From Heads Unworthy" by Rise Against.
• Scarface: The World Is Yours features a version of "Burning Inside" by Ministry as its theme song for the movie-style opening credits.
• A number of Bitmap Brothers games in the late 80s and early 90s use music from Rhythm King artists:
  • Xenon 2 Megablast uses "Megablast (Hip Hop On Precinct 13)" by Bomb the Bass.
  • Magic Pockets uses "Doin' The Do" by Betty Boo.
  • The opening theme for Gods, "Into the Wonderful", was written independently from the game. It was originally meant for the Nation XII's album Electrofear.
• Tony Hawk: RIDE which brings the series out with a musical bang with The Meters' "Cissy Strut".
• Bayonetta uses remixes of "Fly Me To The Moon", usually whenever the title character starts kicking a lot of ass.
  • The sequel uses "Moon River", in keeping with the moon theme.
• The Gran Turismo series releases in Japan tend to open up with a variation of an original piece called "Moon Over the Castle". The European releases, however, have opened up with "Everything Must Go" by Manic Street Preachers, "My Favorite Game" by The Cardigans, "Just a Day" by Feeder and "Reason is Treason" by Kasabian respectively.
  • GT 2's use of "My Favorite Game" by The Cardigans counts as a bit of Fridge Brilliance, considering that the name of the album the song comes from is also called Gran Turismo, and the song itself is about how much the band loved playing the first game on their bus while on tour.
  • The US version of Gran Turismo 4 uses a choral version of "Moon Over the Castle", followed by Van Halen's "Panama". It also has a techno remix of Moon Over The Castle.
    • The EU version instead follows the chorus up with the Jackknife Lee remix of Kasabian's "Reason is Treason".
  • GT 3 uses "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" and "Again" by Lenny Kravitz for its opening and ending themes, respectively.
  • GT 5, in the American and European releases, uses "Planetary (GO!)" by My Chemical Romance.
  • GT 6 uses an original song instead: "All My Life" by Daiki Kasho.
• In the Forza series:
  • Motorsport 2 has "Rockstar (Jason Nevins Remix)" by N.E.R.D.
  • Motorsport 3 has "Tick Tick Boom" by The Hives.
  • Motorsport 4 has "It Starts" by Alex Metric.
  • Horizon has "Language" by Porter Robinson.
  • Horizon 2 has "Nocturne" by Keeno. Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious uses "Get Low" by Dillon Francis and DJ Snake.
  • Horizon 3 features "Ingrid is a Hybrid" by Dusky. The Blizzard Mountain expansion has "Safe and Sound" by Justice, while the Hot Wheels expansion has "Hi!" by Metrik.
  • Horizon 4 uses "A Moment Apart" by ODESZA.
• Wolfenstein 3-D uses "Horst Wessel Lied", the Nazi national anthem, as its theme tune. Unsurprisngly, this along with countless other Nazi symbols in the game led to it being banned in Germany for a long while.
• Sled Storm, at least the PS1 version, uses Rob Zombie's "Dragula" (Hot Rod Herman remix).
• In Parappa The Rapper, the intro to the fourth stage plays a slightly slow-tempo snippet of "Tijuana Taxi" by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. It can be heard after the "I gotta believe" part during the part where the announcer announces Cheap Cheap the Cooking Chicken (Parappa's opponent in this stage).
• The rock band Journey got their own arcade video game during The Golden Age of Video Games, which played several of the band's hits in electronic form. However, the cabinet also contained an actual cassette tape with an edited, looped version of "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" (not an electronic rendition, but the real song), which the game played through its speakers during the bonus stage. Playable copies of the cassette are a rarity for music collectors, as that version of the song isn't available anywhere else.
• The SNK arcade game TNK III uses "The Yellow Rose of Texas" for its opening theme, and part of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" for the Game Over jingle.
• Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War uses Puddle of Mudd's "Blurry" in the trailer and over the end credits.
• The English-language versions of Final Fantasy XIII use Leona Lewis' "My Hands" in the trailer, and during the final cutscene and end credits.
• Final Fantasy XV uses a cover of "Stand By Me" performed by Florence + the Machine as its theme song.
• Taito's Wild Western uses Stan Jones' "Ghost Riders in the Sky" for its main theme. Which, in turn, is a a Suspiciously Similar Song version of the public domain song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".
• Both the Medal of Honor 2010 Continuity Reboot and Gundam Extreme Vs. use "The Catalyst" by Linkin Park; the band has noted themselves as being both video game players and Gundam fans, hence why they let Electronic Arts and Bandai Namco Entertainment go ahead.
• An obscure arcade game by Midway called Domino Man uses Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" as its main theme.
• The DOS pseudo-3D Pac-Man clone 3-Demon uses "Maple Leaf Rag" in speaker bleep form, along with "The Entertainer".
• The pinball game The Championship Pub uses "Maple Leaf Rag".
• The Iron Helix uses the Xorcist song of the same name. The rest of the soundtrack is also by Peter Stone.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops uses Eminem's "Won't Back Down" as its theme.
• All of the canonical Fallout games have this: "Maybe" by the Ink Spots for the original, "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" by Louis Armstrong for Fallout 2, "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" by the Ink Spots for Fallout 3, "Blue Moon" sung by Frank Sinatra (originally by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart) for Fallout: New Vegas, "The Wanderer" by Dion for Fallout 4, and "Take Me Home, Country Roads", originally by John Denver, for Fallout 76.
  • Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas feature radio stations one can listen to; in each, there's a news station that features announcements related to the player's progress through the game, but features real music in-between announcements (in Fallout 3, Galaxy News Radio plays mostly 1940s pop while Enclave Radio plays mainly American patriotic standards; in Fallout: New Vegas, New Vegas Radio plays 1950's songs while Mojave Music and Black Mountain Radio play country/western songs. Old World Blues adds the Mysterious Broadcast, which plays jazz and, you guessed it, blues.)
• The MSX and NES/Vs. versions of The Goonies video game, as well as The Goonies 2, feature Cyndi Lauper's "The Goonies R Good Enough" from the movie in question.
• Wizard of Wor uses the "Danger Ahead" portion of the Dragnet theme to open each stage. If the player is able to shoot the Worluk, the "DOUBLE SCORE DUNGEON" screen will appear, and the fifth note of the theme will play.
• Both the arcade and NES versions of Punch-Out!!^note as well as the arcade version's sequel Super Punch-Out!! (not to be confused with the Super NES game) use the "Look Sharp/Be Sharp March" by Mahlon Merrick for the opening theme. The character's themes are mostly based on real folk songs from their countries of origin, although this part only happens in the NES version and the Wii title.
• Though it should be obvious, each of the Rock Band games has one of the songs from the game play during the opening cutscene from each iteration. The original Rock Band has "Highway Star" by Deep Purple, Rock Band 2 has a rerecording of "Hello There" by Cheap Trick, and Rock Band 3 has "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" by The Doors. In addition, both Green Day Rock Band and The Beatles Rock Band have mashups of several songs by each respective band, and Lego Rock Band uses "Grace" by Music/Supergrass.
• Jet Set Radio Future has a remix of "Concept of Love" by Hideki Naganuma, as well as a soundtrack mostly comprised of remixes from the first game.
• Primal uses 16Volt's "And I Go" for the theme music, along with instrumental versions and edits of other 16Volt songs for the game's soundtrack.
• Inverted in the case of Silent Hill 2. One of the songs from the game, "Promise (Reprise)", was used by the Philadelphia Eagles' splash page on their official website.
• In a crossover with Public Domain Soundtrack, the original Mario Bros. uses the first phrase of Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" for its game start jingle.
• Spy Hunter (1983) has the theme from Peter Gunn as its theme, which was then updated into "The Spy Hunter Theme" by Saliva for the PS2/XBOX installment. The sequel to the PS2/XBOX game has "Dark Carnival", a Bond-esque tune by Vanessa Carlton.
• Enter the Matrix uses Evanescence's "Going Under" as its credits theme.
• Injustice: Gods Among Us uses Angel by Depeche Mode as a credits theme.
• Subverted with Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. In the DS version, part of the credits is accompanied by "Into the Wind" by Crush 40, which is off of their album Thrill of the Feel when they were known as Sons of Angels (that is, before they got busted for using another band's name). In both versions, the Ending Theme, "So Much More..." by British pop singer Bentley Jones, was released on a later EP of the same name.
• NecroVisioN's opening theme, and the Final Boss battle's theme, is "Preliator" by Globus.
• Duke Nukem Forever soundtrack's Duke's return to kick some alien ass with The Prodigy's aptly-named song, "Invaders Must Die".
• The first Homeworld game has the eponymous progressive rock song from Yes as the credits theme. This is only a borderline case: Yes wrote the song because they really, really liked the premise of the game, and the devs asked them if they could use it.
• Mass Effect:
  • In an unusual subversion, the first game's use of "M4 (Part II)" from Faunts as its credits theme is what catapulted the group into fame in the first place.
    • Mass Effect 3 uses another Faunts song, "Das Malefitz", for its closing credits.
    • An in-universe example: the romantic theme for Mass Effect 3 is called "I Was Lost Without You". In the Citadel DLC for the game, Shepard and Tali watch Fleet and Flotilla; the romantic theme for the movie is the same tune. From the same DLC, Liara plays "Vigil" from Mass Effect on the piano when she visits Shepard's apartment.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda uses Aurora's "Under Stars".
• Putty uses the Joe 90 theme song as its opening theme.
• Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver uses "Ozar Midrashim" by Information Society, from their 1997 album Don't Be Afraid.
• Speed Punks uses "Travelling Without Moving" by Jamiroquai as its opening theme.
• Phantom Dust prominently features classical music mixed into an ambient-industrial tone, to fit the mood of the game.
• Saints Row: The Third uses "Power" by Kanye West as the Villain Song of the protagonist, as well as "Holding Out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler for the penultimate mission.
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater plays "Way to Fall" by Starsailor during the ending credits.
• Never Dead uses the song of the same name from Megadeth as its theme song.
• Hatoful Boyfriend uses Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" as Shuu's character theme.
• EV Nova uses "Mars, the Bringer of War" from Gustav Holst's "The Planets Suite".
• The arcade and Sega Genesis versions of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker feature OPN2 remixes of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal," "Beat It", "Another Part of Me", "Billie Jean", and "Bad" as stage themes.
• Fahrenheit has several Theory of a Deadman songs, with "Santa Monica" playing over the credits.
• OFF uses Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz as its ending theme.
• Zap Dramatic's Move or Die uses "Newton's Apple" by Danny Michel.
• Endless Ocean uses several Hayley Westenra songs, with "Prayer" being mostly closely identified as the title screen music and "The Water is Wide" for the credits.
• Vanguard plays the Star Trek: The Motion Picture theme at the start of the game, and then Vultan's theme from Flash Gordon when the player gets a power-up. This slipped pass both Paramount and Universal somehow.
• Revolution X, being an Aerosmith game, naturally features some of the band's songs, transparently looping thanks to the Midway DCS box. The arcade version contains the songs "Eat the Rich," "Sweet Emotion," "Toys in the Attic," "Love in an Elevator," and "Walk This Way." The console versions added the songs "Rag Doll", "Fever", and "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)".
• Sega's little-known Cool Riders game has Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild", which is played during the title screen and is selectable in-game.
• Grand Theft Auto 2: The song playing in the FMV movie is "Rhythm" by Engineers Without Fears.
  • On the topic of Grand Theft Auto, games since GTA 2 have had licensed music appear in the game as well. Very often the songs will undergo Revival by Commercialization and become popular again just for appearing in the game.
• Lollipop Chainsaw, being what Suda51 calls "a piece of pop zombie entertainment", has numerous licensed songs, from "Lollipop" by The Chordettes and the notorious "You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record)" by Dead or Alive, to "Mickey" by Toni Basil, which is used as a Theme Music Power-Up in the game.
• LISA uses an instrumental version "I've Got The Joy" (tying in with the in-game Fantastic Drug called Joy) as its ending theme.
• Initial D Arcade Stage tends to feature a lot of Eurobeat tracks, particularly from Avex Trax's Super Eurobeat collection.
• The original release of MDK ends with a cover of the song Non non Rien n'a Changé by French musician Billy ze Kick, which was released the year before on the album Paniac. The re-releases of the game remove that ending, however.
• Strike Force Heroes has a remix of When Johnny Comes Marching Home, an American patriotic song (it's also the basis for "The Ants Go Marching") as its theme.
• Spec Ops: The Line has a few licensed tracks in-game. The Jimi Hendrix version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is used as the title screen music becoming increasingly more distorted with a Drone of Dread as the game gets increasingly more dark, while his song "1983... A Merman I Should Turn To Be" is used for the credits.
• The first The Impossible Quiz game loops "Gonna Fly Now" (aka the Rocky theme) and an instrumental version of "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" by the Flaming Lips. One of the questions also plays a clip from another Flaming Lips song, namely "What is the Light?"
• Boong-Ga Boong-Ga, a South Korean arcade game that involves shoving your fingers up someone's ass. The game is weird enough as is, but then they also stole the theme song from The Addams Family to use on the level select screen, which just makes things weirder.
• Time Crisis: Razing Storm uses "Ashes" as its opening theme and "The Bleeding" as its ending theme, both of which are done by Five Finger Death Punch.
• Pinball Arcade uses "Pinball Wizard" from The Who when selecting a table. Earlier versions of the game used an instrumental, while more recent versions use the full song.
• Momoko 120% features "Lum no Love Song" ("Lum's Love Song"), the first (and perhaps most well known) opening theme to the Urusei Yatsura anime series. Justified, since it was originally going to be an Urusei Yatsura game^note It was eventually released on the Nintendo Famicom (the original Japanese version of the NES) as Urusei Yatsura: Lum no Wedding Bell, where the song choice makes a lot more sense.
• Konami's arcade game Mikie provides another early example, utilizing "A Hard Day's Night" and "Twist and Shout" by The Beatles as background music (both officially licensed according to the flyer for its Japanese counterpart Shinjinshain Tohru-kun).
• The 1983 arcade game Commando by Sega (which is not the same as the later Capcom arcade game) uses the Colonel Bogey March as its main theme.
• Monster Prom: The game's OST is composed of a 2015 album from the band Messer Chups, The Incredible Crocotiger. The ending theme is a 2011 song by Mike Kroll, "Fifteen Minutes".
• Lego DC Super-Villains has the Wolfmother song "Joker and the Thief" play during the title screen and in the Hall of Doom.
• Crossing over with Public Domain Soundtrack, the arcade game City Connection plays the “Flohwalzer” (lit “Flea Waltz”) when you hit a cat.^note  However, this is lost on non-Japanese players; in Japan, the melody is used for the traditional song, "Neko Funjatta", which translates as "I Stepped On a/the Cat".. Aside from that, Tchaikovsky’s “Piano Concerto No.1: Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso” is the game’s main BGM (despite being heavily remixed for each level), and a few bars from “Turkey In The Straw” play when you hit a spike or a police car.
• In certain versions of Dr. Mario, the first five notes of "The Flea Waltz"/"Neko Funjatta" can be heard when the player does certain things such as eliminating two viruses at once or scoring a combo.
• Eliminate Pro used a shorter version of Amon Tobin's "Mighty Micro People" as the game's main menu music.
• The announcement trailers for the remakes of the Destroy All Humans! games has Crypto singing along to Rammstein songs.
  • Destroy All Humans! (2020) plays "Ich Will" by as part of an Establishing Series Moment, the Villain Protagonist Crypto hypnotizing an American suburb to it For the Evulz.
  • The trailer for Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed uses "Amerika" as Crypto (who at this point has been disguised as the POTUS) wreaking havoc around the world, brutally imposing his form of American Imperialism.
• Many of the background music used in Fate are based on Turlough O'Carolan's compositions.
• While most of the music across the Ultima series is original, it does repurpose "Rule Britannia" to be the theme for Lord British, even going so far as to use a version in a minopr key for while he was captured by the Shadowlords.
• Test Drive series:
  • 4 uses "Out There Somewhere (Part 2)" by Orbital.
  • 5 uses "Genius" by Pitch Shifter.
  • 6 uses "Cars" by Fear Factory & Gary Numan.
  • The 2001 reboot has "Lackluster" by Saliva.
• Full Throttle, which is themed around a biker gang, uses songs from the biker band The Gone Jackals on its soundtrack. "Legacy" plays during the opening cinematic and closing credits. The band's "Born Bad" and "Drop The Hammer" are also played during the closing credits.
• While OMORI does have an original theme tune, it additionally uses "My Time" in both a trailer and during the credits for the bad ending.
• Robbie Williams' "Let Me Entertain You" is used as the main menu music for Actua Soccer 3.
• Jak X: Combat Racing uses the songs "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire" and "Song For The Dead" by Queens of the Stone Age for the intro cinematic.
• Like a Dragon had a period of using licenced tracks as the theme songs for each game, at least in the Japanese releases. Those are "Loser" by Eikichi Yazawa for Yakuza 3, "Butterfly City" by ZEEBRA for Yakuza 4, "Bloody Moon" by GOSPELS OF JUDAS for Yakuza 5, and "Sobo" by Tatsuro Yamashita for Yakuza 6.
• PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale uses Madeon's "Finale" for its theme.
• Robot Unicorn Attack memetically utilizes "Always" by Erasure.

Web Animation

• High Score (the precursor to Bonus Stage) used Reel Big Fish's "A Little Doubt Goes a Long Way" as its theme song.
• Zero Punctuation originally opened and closed each video with a short snippet of a song that was vaguely appropriate to the game he was covering. He eventually stopped doing this and got an official theme song.
• gen:LOCK used Battle Tapes' "Belgrade" as its opening theme, and introduced a lot of people to Battle Tapes in the process.
• After Red vs. Blue had at most songs that the band Trocadero had written before the show started (one, "Vale Deah", was added to the Season 1 credits), season 18, Red vs. Blue: Zero, has an opening featuring the Omega Sparx song "The Mark" — the rapper also contributed some new tracks for the season.

Web Original

• Hamster Corporation, who releases various classic arcade games under the Arcade Archives, and ACA Neo Geo names, has a weekly livestream called "Arcade Archiver". The theme to this livestream is the original PSG version of the main theme from Terra Cresta, taken directly from the original game, which as it happens, is one of the games that Hamster has released.^note There are two versions of the game. It was later re-released with an FM sound-based version of the soundtrack. Near the end, when they're about to sign off for the week, it switches to "Marching Raster", the name entry theme from the same game.^note Hamster is legally able to do this since they now own the rights to the Nichibutsu library after Nichibutsu went out of business when its original founder and president decided to retire and close the company, after which he sold the entire library to Hamster.
• The world of Smegolia has the Monoral's Kiri as its theme tune.

Web Videos

• Analyst Bronies React uses a a rock instrumental of the Italian opening to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
• Binging with Babish uses a snippet of "Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs", the theme from Frasier.
• From Channel Awesome we have:
  • Benzaie's Hardcorener uses the arranged version of "Roar of the Twin Dragons" by Kazuhiro Hara and Nobuhito Tanahashi from the album Double Dragon II: The Revenge.
  • All of Brad Jones' current shows use Theme Tunes from 1980s TV shows:
    • The Cinema Snob - "Believe It or Not" from The Greatest American Hero
    • The Pierre Kirby episodes - "Jet Set" by Alphaville
    • Kung Tai Ted - The Master (but not "Master Ninja Theme Song"!)
    • The Big Box - Automan
    • Brad Tries... - Newhart''
    • 80's Dan - Probably the most obscure of all, this one is from a James D Parriot/Universal cop show called Hawaiian Heat. It ran on ABC in 1984 and flopped horribly.
    • Brad and Jerrid - Bay City Blues, another extremely obscure one, and one of many TV shows from NBC's infamous "no-hitter" year of 1983-84 where none of their new fall shows lasted a full season.
  • Chad Rocco uses the Junkie XL remix of "A Little Less Conversation" for his Familiar Faces show.
  • That Dude in the Suede's theme songs are all Real Song Theme Tunes.
    • They're Having An Evangelion Moment! - Unknown Song.
    • Animénia - How Do You Have Your Tea? by Urbantramper
    • AMV Heaven - Smack My Bitch Up by The Prodigy
    • Fandom Stranger - Return of the Phantom Stranger by Rob Zombie. When it was Anime Weirdness, it used Let’s Fighting Love by DVDA
    • Suede Played has Airbrushed by Anamanaguchi.
  • Film Brain's is "Ready to Roll" by Jet Black Stare.
  • Brows Held High uses the composition "Procession of the Nobles" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
  • Spoony's theme is "Break Me" by The Irresponsibles.
  • What the Fuck Is Wrong with You?'s theme in both its episodic and live incarnations is "Crazy" by Patsy Cline
    • Nash's other show The Musical Chair has "My Guitar" by Jump, Little Children as its theme.
  • Luke Mochrie and the Inners use the Ouverture from 1981 musical Shock Treatment
  • ... and Obscurus Lupa uses The Supernaturals' Smile for her feature Manic Episodes.
  • Todd in the Shadows opens Pop Song Reviews and One Hit Wonderland with himself playing instrumental versions of the spotlight song on his keyboard.
• The Continue? series uses two songs from video games for their intro - the dying jingle from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and "Lord of Darkness", Ashtar's theme from Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword Of Chaos.
• G.I. Joe PSAs used a snippet of Fun Time Accapella by Night Rider in Reggae.
• Linus Tech Tips: The theme song is Supernova by artist Laszlo. The comments on the original video overwhelmingly reference Linus Tech Tips. The first LTT video to use the song is "Obutto Revolution Gaming Cockpit - The ULTIMATE Workstation Computer Setup?" on February 9, 2015.
• Movie Dorkness: 'Brazil - The Office' during the 'Red Suitcase' era.
• Musical Hell, adequate to a show hosted by a devil, opens and closes with "Danse Macabre".
• The Music Video Show had theme songs for three and a half seasons from a band called The Carps.
  • Season One: Compton To Scarboro
  • Season Two: All The Damn Kids
  • Season Three: Veronica Belmont
  • Season Four: Heaven's Gates & Hell's Flames was used for about half the season before the opening credits were phased out.
• Fans of NextG Poop are more likely to call The Rembrandts' "I'll Be There for You" "the NextG Poop theme" rather than "the Friends theme".
• For its first few episodes, Oddity Archive used XTC's "Senses Working Overtime" as its theme song, before switching to an original composition.
• The first PONIES The Anthology uses a pony-version of "Power" by Kanye West for its opening short.
• Scott The Woz: A portion of the track "Breakout" from the PlayStation 3 game 3D Dot Game Heroes is used as the ending theme. It's often referenced and remixed in other songs throughout the show, such as the song in The Bible Game, the opening titles in It's Awesome Baby! and It's A Bargain Bin Christmas, the fight scene in Anime Games, and a Dark Reprise at the end of Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash | The Darker Age of Nintendo.
• The Twilight Chronicles uses Ke$ha's "We R Who We R". Episode 7 had a special opening credits montage consisting of:
  • "Yes" by LMFAO (Jacob)
  • "Miss New Booty" by Bubba Sparxx (Edward's Mom)
  • "Cherry Lips" by Garbage (Edward)
  • "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO (Bella and Carlisle).
• Two Best Friends Play uses "Green Greens" from Kirby, but with their own lyrics on top of it.

Western Animation

• The Baby Blues cartoon used "It's All Been Done" by Barenaked Ladies. Thanks to uncleared song licensing rights, it's the reason why that show wasn't released on home media until 2020, when HBO Max made it available on their service.
• The Back to the Future cartoon used "Back in Time" by Huey Lewis and the News (which also appeared in the first movie).
• Beat Bugs, a Netflix original series that features stories themed after songs of The Beatles, uses a cover of "All You Need is Love" performed by the show's main characters.
• The Beatles cartoon used real Beatles songs throughout the series, including the title sequences. "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Help!" were both used as theme songs, but the one that seems to be the best remembered is "And Your Bird Can Sing," which was used during the last season. A rearrangement of "I Should Have Known Better" was used in the title cards.
  • Actually, that was the King Features Television signature theme. It was used at the end of several features and the end of their other Saturday morning show, Cool McCool.
• Bill The Minder, a British children's series of the 1980s based around the drawings of Heath Robinson, used Giuseppe Verdi's famous march from "Aida" as its theme.
• Birdz used a cover of "Surfin' Bird" by The Trashmen (Yes, THAT song).
• The Boondocks used the song "Judo Flip" by Asheru for its opening sequence.
• G4's Code Monkeys uses Jonathan Coulton's song "Code Monkey", one of his better-known works.
• Dawdle the Donkey used most of the first verse of Chris de Burgh's "That's What Friends Are For".
• Father of the Pride opens with John Goodman's rendition of Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas".
• Fillmore! uses the instrumental opening to "Das Uber Tuber" by Ookla the Mok.
• F is for Family uses "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone in the intro sequence.
• Generator Rex used the song "Revolution" by pop punk band Orange, with other songs from the LA-based group showing up as Insert Songs throughout the show's run.
• In 1985, DIC Entertainment created an animated show called Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling which was based on the WWE (then known as the WWF) superstars of the era. The theme song was a Bonnie Tyler song called "Ravishing", however, this is a subversion of the trope since it doesn't use the actual song proper (it doesn't even feature any of the lyrics), just various musical sections of the song as an instrumental with occasional chants of "Hulk! Hulk!".
• Il Était Une Fois... has a synth cover of Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
• The Jackson 5ive cartoon used a specially recorded medley of four of the group's biggest hits during that time ("ABC", "I Want You Back", "The Love You Save", and "Mama's Pearl"; in that order) for both the opening and closing.
• KaBlam!'s theme song is an instrumental to "2-Tone Army" by The Toasters, with the original closing theme being "Skaternity" then later changed to "Everything You Said Has Been A Lie" from season two onward, also by The Toasters.
• The French cartoon A Kind of Magic uses the Queen song of the same name.
• The Life & Times of Tim: "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" by Hank Williams.
• Though it's best known as the Looney Tunes theme, "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" was originally a #1 hit in 1937.
  • "Merrily We Roll Along," from a 1935 show of the same title, is best known as the "Merrie Melodies" theme.
• The Madballs cartoon used a cover of "Great Balls of Fire" by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer as the theme song.
• Mission Hill uses an instrumental version of Cake's "Italian Leather Sofa" (and, strangely, was left in when the show was put on DVD. The rest of the music and songs used were redubbed with copyright-friendly soundalikes).
• The Osmonds' 1972 cartoon show used their hit "One Bad Apple" as the theme.
• If songs originally first used in movies count, Disney did that with several spin-off cartoons:
  • The Little Mermaid (1992) used an instrumental medley beginning with "Part of Your World," continuing with "Under the Sea," then "Kiss the Girl," then "Under the Sea" again, then "Part of Your World" once more and ending, once again, with "Under the Sea."
  • Aladdin: The Series used "Arabian Nights" for its opening theme.
  • Timon & Pumbaa used "Hakuna Matata" for its opening theme.
  • Hercules: The Animated Series used "Zero to Hero" for its opening theme.
  • The Legend of Tarzan used "Two Worlds" for its opening theme.
  • Jungle Cubs used "The Bare Necessities" for its opening theme.
• The Totally Spies! theme uses the tune of Moonbaby's "Here We Go" with Expository Theme Tune lyrics (as the regular lyrics to that song are a bit too risque for kids' TV).
• Transformers: Beast Machines used Leftfield's "Phat Planet" for its theme, spiced up with animal noises. The music in the series itself modeled itself off the theme. And it's even kept intact in the Japanese dub too when the show was renamed as Beast Wars Returns... except in the recap episode (due to the cast talking over it on the opening).
• The animated version of George and Martha used "Perfidia" by Mambo All-Stars.
• The pilot for Superjail! opened with 10cc’s "Rubber Bullets". However, due to licensing costs, the song was replaced with the Suspiciously Similar Song “Comin’ Home” by Cheeseburger. Interestingly, “Comin’ Home” would become this trope itself when it was used in the intro to Skate 3.
• Virtual Hero features Mägo de Oz's "El libro de las sombras".
• The Rugrats special "Vacation" opens with "Vacation" by The Go-Go's.
• As an Alternative Foreign Theme Song example, the Japanese dub of Spongebob Squarepants, from Season 11 onwards, uses "ONE WAY" by BOYS AND MEN as its ending theme.
• The theme song for Yakkity Yak uses the re-recorded version of the 1958 song "Yakety Yak" by The Coasters.

Other

• ESPN employs this trope during sports coverage. The network used "Superwoman" by Alicia Keys for the 2008 WNBA season, and Aloe Blacc's "The Man" for the 2014 NFL Draft.
• The BBC has done this too:
  • From 1978–1996 and again from 2009–2015, it used the closing bass line from Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" as the theme tune for its Formula One coverage. After Channel 4 took over F1 coverage from Auntie in 2016, it continued to use "The Chain" until introducing a new original theme in 2019.
  • And from 1979 until 2005, all of the election coverage had the opening to "Arthur" by Rick Wakeman as its theme tune.
• Local TV newscasts have used real songs, often instrumentals, on occasion. Perhaps the most famous use would be Gonna Fly Now being the theme to the ground-breaking CityPulse in Toronto from 1977 into the 2000s (with various rearrangements and new themes with the same melody being used until then).
  • Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo has used "Freedom of Speech", an instrumental from the soundtrack of the 1971 film Vanishing Point, as the theme music for its newsmagazine Globo Repórter for decades.
    • The same network uses "The Fuzz" by American composer Frank de Vol, an instrumental from the 1967 film The Happening, for its main newscast Jornal Nacional.
• A few visual effects and logo branding companies will utilize this trope for their reels (especially if there's more than one), normally editing the song down while they're at it:
  • New Deal Studios has shortened versions of "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra and "Gamma Ray" by Beck.
  • Luma Pictures has an edited and remixed version of The Rolling Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil" and James Brown's "Superbad" for their main reel (Before that, they used an edited version of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" with "Superbad" for the end credits). They also cross over into Soundtrack Dissonance with their reel for Underworld: Awakening by using Duran Duran's "Hungry Like The Wolf".
  • Rhythm & Hues used to have Coldplay's "Clocks" in their old animal demo reel. They currently use The Naked and Famous's Young Blood and Elbow's "One Day Like This" for their general and feature reels, respectively.
  • Pittard Sullivan used "From Rusholme with Love" by Mint Royale.
• Kiddie Rides tend to do this a lot. Generic horses usually either play the Bonanza theme or William Tell Overture. It gets even crazier in Japan, where rides featuring generic cats may play the Candy♡Candy theme (how did they associate cats with the girl?) or even It's A Small World After All, and there are generic carousels that play When You Wish Upon A Star and the Alice in Wonderland opening theme when not related to Disney whatsoever. And of course, this trope is inevitable with licensed kiddie rides.
• The Nokia tune is based on bars 13 to 16 of "Gran Vals", a classical guitar piece written by Francisco Tárrega in 1902.
• From 2007 to 2013, the theme song of the Kids' CBC program block was "When the Night Feels My Song" by Bedouin Soundclash.
• The Canadian distributor Indiecan Entertainment uses the riff from "Weary Ghost" by Wintersleep to accompany its Vanity Plate.

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