red dwarf page

The idea behind the sound of the theme song of Red Dwarf is to emulate the 'wall of sound' studio style of the great 60s American pop producer Phil Spector. The singer was Jenna Russell, who first appeared in Howard's West End Musical 'GIRLFRIENDS', and who went on to do many TV and theatre roles. In 2005 she appeared opposite Ewan McGregor as Adelaide in the West End revival of Guys and Dolls.

The theme was recorded at Angel Studios in Islington, north London, and the now-legendary guitar solo was played by Tom Blades. The solo was transcribed and reproduced by TOTAL GUITAR magazine/CD/CD-Rom in April 1997.

There have been various songs written into the series along the way, notably Tongue-Tied and the Arnold Rimmer Song. Danny John-Jules did a cover of Tongue-Tied in 1993 which had a brief flirtation with the charts. The theme is also featured in a somewhat crap cover version on a Polygram CD "The No.1 Sci-Fi Album"(1997), and in a less crap repro called "This is Science Fiction - an epic album of adventure and exploration!" (1999)

On October 30th 2004 Manchester's world-famous Halle Orchestra gave the world premiere of Howard's Red Dwarf Space Suite.

[this is the very first, original pencil rough score of the Red Dwarf theme tune, the one Howard took to Rob & Doug and sang from]

Rick Mason's thorough site devoted to the Red Dwarf theme can be found here.

And the bit about Howard ('the theme man') in it can be found here.

The official Red Dwarf site can be found here.

1994 Interview in 'Red Dwarf Smegazine' can be found here

Austin Ross' Garbage World Red Dwarf site is here

 

Red Dwarf Theme Song (Sibelius Scorch) Score

Tongue-Tied Song (Sibelius Scorch) Score