progressive rock | Through the Shattered Lens

I remember being very young and getting the chills and scares whenever I heard the opening notes to the fifth entry to the week-long horror-themed “Song of the Day” feature for the site. Even now into my third decade I still get a bit of the willies whenever this song comes on TV, cable or I happen to click on the video on YouTube. The song I’m speaking of is the opening theme to William Friendkin’s horror masterpiece, The Exorcist.

The theme was composed by English musician Mike Oldfield in 1973. “Tubular Bells” is actually an epic piece of progressive rock music which is actually split into two parts. It’s the first part which was chosen and slightly reworked by Oldfield himself to become the opening theme to The Exorcist. This particular theme has become one of the most iconic film themes in cinema history. I’m not just talking about in the horror genre but in all of film.

A person who has never seen Friedkin’s masterpiece about a young girl possessed by the Devil and the ritual which happens soon after will know the theme once they hear it. The theme is literally played on the same name musical intruments. While the original has a more baroque sound with some synth manipulation added to the overall tone, the one used for the film definitely has a more progressive/synth rock to its tempo and tone.

In the end, this chosen theme for the day will be continue to scare and terrify old and new audiences of The Exorcist. Just looking at the video above with just the fog-shrouded Georgetown brownstone in the foreground and Father Merrin just standing there looking up at the home then having the theme playing would make even the most God-less person want to start praying for their eternal soul.

Halloween is less than a week away and for the next few days there’ll be more song of the day choices and this time around it will all be centered on horror. To start things off I chose the theme from George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead which was composed by the Italian prog-rock band Goblin.

The theme’s titled “L’alba Dei Morti Viventi” and it definitely creates a dissonant tone which just creeps along and makes one feel more than just a bit uncomfortable. Goblin used a lot of their electronic music background to make this such a signature and iconic horror theme. Anyone who has seen the original Dawn of the Dead will automatically recognize this theme and the feeling it brings up. A feeling of dread and of creeping horror which perfectly describes the zombies from Romero’s grand opus.

Horror fans everywhere have Italian horror maestro Dario Argento for having gotten Goblin to create the score for Romero’s film (Argento was one of the key producers for the film and even re-cut it for the European market). Goblin had already worked with Argento on previous films with their best early work with the filmmaker being the score for Profondo Rosso (known as Deep Red in the US and English market). But no matter how many other Italian horror scores the band has made since Dawn of the Dead (and the ones after have been great in their own right) it will be their score for that film which will indelibly link the band in film music history.

PS: as an added bonus below is the band’s theme for Argento’s Profondo Rosso.