Tomorrow's World theme tune - 1987

The theme for Tomorrow's World, used from 1987 to 1993

[@Gasmanic]

What an honest-to-god epic, emotionally stirring piece of music this is. If it wasn't the theme tune to Tomorrow's World, it would be the soundtrack to the scene in a fantasy movie where the plucky young hero arrives at King Arthur's castle. Riding a dragon. On Christmas day.

[@ahsenkhan5386]

Nah I prefer it to be used King Sallahudin instead of King Arthur

[@RichieRouge206]

John from Auto Shenanigans used this recently as an outro on one of his videos and it’s absolutely incredible. It gives me goosebumps everytime I hear it! Such an uplifting piece of music- the classical uplifting horns strings mixed with a modern beat. Wow

[@atraxus]

When I was growing up this is what science sounded like :)

[@iamfinky]

Ah, good old Judith Hann! I miss those days.

[@ssss-df5qz]

Yeah I agree - so dramatic and "brave new worlds". Seeing how kids today look at a mid range phone they got for christmas and throwing a tantrum because they didn't get the pro.... that's where we're at now.

[@iamfinky]

Me too! I really miss this!

[@captainchaos3667]

Yes, me too! This, and it's Dutch equivalent, Wondere Wereld, which used Dervish D as its intro music.

[@culttelevision]

This was composed in 1985 and was first used that year. It was Paul Hart and Joe Campbell aka Joe & Co, who had just done Food and Drink and would go on to do the BBC Mexico '86 World Cup theme the next year - Aztec Lightning.

[@digitalmediafan]

Classic great theme tune and the programme was pure quality with content and presenters, Maggie Philbin, Howard Staplefield etc very likeable genuine people with no front no smugness you could tell they loved what they did...

[@bikers_path]

So nostalgic... I was 4 years old and this show largely dictated my direction in life in wanting to be an engineer and working with computers and machines. My sincere thanks to everyone involved in its making, translating and getting it to a 4-year old Tunisian boy.

[@iomega3373]

Little memories, marching on Your little feet, working the machine Will it spin, will it soar My little dream, working the machine

[@nasseemnaffaa3266]

I can’t hear the resemblance ☹️

[@swarajkanr]

For me this feels as a rope & the part resembling the Empire Ant is just a thread.

[@tgmaps]

@@nasseemnaffaa3266 I know right. I've listened to Empire Ants a lot and couldn't hear the resembelance at all.

[@tabithathecat]

Finally someone who recognises it. Only a very small part of it was used, though, you can hardly notice it here

[@deano72]

Never tire of this great peice of music.

[@HD41117]

This version of the TW theme was also released in a three-dimensional audio version after a programme feature on reproducing a 3D sound space through two-channel audio. They used the Roland Sound Space processor and I fell in love!

[@MrDuncanr7]

Yes I remember that, my friend recrded it on cassette for me, it was amazing, I wonder if its available anywhere?

[@HD41117]

@@MrDuncanr7 hello there! Yes it's available on CD. You want this one www.discogs.com/The-BBCs-Sound-Effects-Library-Essential-Hi-Tech-Sound-Effects/release/5608011

[@garycornelius8224]

The best science programme on telly at the time, and this is my favourite theme. Still gives me shivers down my spine all these years later.

[@nord1486]

I remember watching this every Thursday waiting for Top Of The Pops to come on

[@Scripture-Man]

I _love_ this tune by Paul Hart. It was perfect, and still fills me with a sense of inspiration, excitement and optimism about science and technology. It starts off full of wonder, rather similar to the E.T. Theme, then a majestic cornet comes in, then the timpani rolls and… BAM! Powerful brass and synth percussion. And the time signature is *_15 beats_* Wow!

[@stephenbirchard146]

This was the TW theme when I was studying for my Biological Sciences degree and began my subsequent career as a scientist. It's reprise on BBC4's 'Tomorrow's World Live' brought back why I fell in love with science. Please, let's have a new series.

[@pipthecynical]

Even the theme tune makes me want to keep watching. And it existed before I did.

[@pixelfibre]

Sweet and dandy. Some classic 'peaks' in that. Seamless blend of synth and brass.

[@scottishwildcat]

Ah, my favourite TW theme by miles. Spent days recreating it on OctaMED on my Amiga at one point :)

[@mrcrazyjonpresents4312]

Sends me back to 1987 as a 17 year old we as a family had just watched Top Of The Pops before then on this came Great times and happy times

[@amandeepv]

15 year old for me then. Great time Thatcher boom in full flow before the bust of 1989. Great music in the charts.

[@dazzerman]

Listening to this theme makes we want to buy a leather cover for my Radio Times.

[@peter-jamesmmbago8721]

That trumpet is lit

[@adamrj7286]

Always loved this tune, the way it ends is the best...

[@bmused55]

Memories of watching many Tomorrows World recordings at school!

[@seadog365]

best tomorrow's world theme ever!

[@imogenimeson664]

No it ain't! it's tedius, repetative and boring.

[@tech10k14]

Is Jonathan serious? The preceding one is FAR better! kzbin.info/www/bejne/d2Kaq3yfeLGpeM0

[@Neil_Gibson]

Brings back a lot of memories! I think the BBC was a perfect “network” to showcase the technology as opposed to the brand or product. These days it’s all about product placement and often a tech show is a thinly veiled advertisement.

[@OliverKiellCameraman]

Brilliant! My Thursday evening was great when this was on!

[@djouroboros]

What an excellent theme tune this is!!!!

[@deano72]

Sure is a excellent track. Louder the better😉

[@drakelowc]

Had this played at my Wedding reception!

[@trevorhackett8826]

When you married a robot

[@orlandosalim4766]

@@trevorhackett8826 Best comment ever you made my day 🤣🤣🤣

[@imogenimeson664]

Sad.

[@tisme1105]

That's brilliant :)

[@Atif_Ph.D._Kate_Bush_Fan_Club]

A masterpiece. Wow. It brings back so many wonderful memories of Thursday nights in the '80's.

[@marknoble415]

THIS is what the future sounded like. It was glorious.

[@indiana1977]

Wonderful. Very 80s/early 90s. 1:11 to 1:20 has a beautiful resolution of the main theme.

[@grrlpurpleable]

This such a stirring, hopeful and epic theme for Tomorrow's World. Totally at odds with the steaming pile of something that the real world turned into on that tomorrow ;)

[@wraithneon]

Tomorrows world was quality prgramming. Please bring it back.

[@melissanewton7462]

Wonderful programme watched from it's very beginning. Have all of it's theme tunes within my BBC Theme LP collection.

[@seblewis6275]

The opening bars sound like they could be the opening theme to a breakfast programme at 6am with sunrise and famies etting ready for school and work.

[@rvolland]

I believe this theme first appeared with the 21st Anniversary episode in 1986.

[@HD41117]

Oh yes! I had forgotten it was Kate Bellingham and I didn't know she was also a sound engineer. That's great. The simulcast I do remember as I had everything set up in anticipation. Happy days. Thank you for the information.

[@markfrancis6508]

my gripe is in 1985 some presenter said you could eat your dinner on a CD and it would still play. WHAT A LIE.

[@johnnysmith9755]

They explained once, due to the eventual mass manufacturing costs/methods of the time, the ones that found their way to our homes were much less durable than the initial prototypes 👍

[@Mortimer50145]

The first time I saw and heard a CD, I was *very* impressed with it. A group of us at university in the early 80s had gone down into town to a hifi shop to hear a demo of a disc. I was immediately impressed with the clarity of the sound, the wide dynamic range, the absense of background hiss/scratches/dust-ticking etc that you get with LP or cassette tape. He "sold" the idea of CDs on that basis. Then he started talking about how durable and rugged the CD was. He pulled out a very tatty, scratched, scuffed CD from his trouser pocket where it had been sat next to his car keys. He played it - perfect sound. He then made a scratch across it with a sewing needle - again, flawless sound. So my mate, a great big burly Mancunian who was built like a brick, er, *out* house, leaned across and grabbed the CD and needle. He proceeded to gouge a huge trench in the disc. The salesman turned pale but he played the disc. There were a few ticks and a couple of skips. "Now I'm *really* impressed," my mate said. "Do that to a record and you'd rip the f-ing needle off!"

[@dancrumb]

@@johnnysmith9755 is totally right here. The original CDs had a lot of error correction and redundancy on them that meant that the data lost from the scratch could be re-assembled with data elsewhere on the CD. The level of redundancy was excessive for consumer use, but, personally, I think they went a little too far the other way and made CDs far too delicate. A better middle ground could have been found, but they decided to cheap out on us :/

[@deano72]

It would still play just done eat on the bottom bit. I remember them saying that too. Lol. I love been old

[@damkk]

Why isn't there something like this now showing us new technologies in development on primetime

[@laxeystu8096]

Because TV has changed? An informative science based programme is less fun than a reality based format like Dragons Den.

[@salmaanahmed9172]

Because people have now taken science and technology for granted. It's not a source of wonder or interest anymore, just mundane and expected.

[@zippy_uk1046]

Classy and epic. "Classical" sounding, yet very subtle electronic tones blended in as well.

[@melissanewton4348]

I have three versions of Tommorrow's World on record plus as well as a whole host of T.V. theme albums (mainly BBC ) I also have one from the BBC 's sound workshop. They are all fantastic and probably worth a bob or two by now.

[@davecross4408]

BBC working their way through the Brass section of the orchestra! Early 90s came the Saxaphone in EVERY-BLOODY-THING!!

[@scottishwildcat]

Dave Cross Sax is woodwind, not brass ;)

[@garyhunt8067]

This theme and the other previous Tomorrow's World tunes were awesome.

[@coldwarjet]

Remember when the future was something to be excited about? What happened?

[@YaYaMan]

The year 2000 came and it was exactly like 90s. No flying cars or anything :-(

[@andrewscott1253]

We grew old. :( older folk are never happy about the future.

[@kildrummer]

What happened? We realised that the future wasn't going to involve working only a couple of days a week & spending the rest of our time on the golf course! Tech would take some jobs & leave us with jobs that were essentially bull**** selling & administering what would actually be made by a robot or a 6 year old filipino. We would end up working as hard as ever to buy cr@p we don't really need to put in houses we can afford less & less,knowing our children's lives would be worse than ours. Tomorrow's world in the 70s looked brilliant-but today's world in the 2010s looks rather less appealling!

[@ONCEbittenTWICEshyshyshy]

zuiderzee1973 because if they did tomorrow's world in this day, it would show either: killer machines that we gave birth to destroying mankind, or a nuclear wasteland devoid of life after one of our world leaders got a cob on.

[@SnabbKassa]

al-Qaeda happened. 100% blame in one direction.

[@DJ_Hadez]

By 1997, work will be a thing of the past. Mankind's most pressing concern will be how to spend his abundant leisure time.

[@aaronjameslockwood2437]

1,984% bestest Tomorrow's World theme ever.

[@orlandosalim4766]

I liked the music theme thanks for sharing 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@nickthebluemonkey1149]

My mum and I used to watch this together, marveling at Man's ingenuity. Someone she knew entered an invention into one of their competitions too. This show harks from an era when the UK celebrated its cleverness, putting it on at prime time. Nowadays people just want to tweet about TOWIE on their the newer whiter squarer iPhone. *sigh* ahh nostalgia..

[@raccoonchild]

Lmfao, typical generalizing bitter comment.

[@repo136]

Raccoon Child But sadly very, very true.

[@kailashpatel1706]

good response...the intellectual content of some progs in the 1970s-80s was very high end, 'the ascent of man stuff' like that showed the bbc was trying to educate the public...

[@Ironlord2015]

This is sadly extremely true, we now live in the dumbest times ever, with the dumbest generation. Unless there's a screen involved for youngsters to stare at they're not interested. Even when you walk through the streets there's folk everywhere staring at screens, probably walking into lamp posts, falling down holes, getting hit by cars, infact there were reports globally of people getting injured while walking into traffic, and staring at screens when that Pokemon go nonsense was released, and all it was is a tracking device anyway....dangerous stuff!

[@gthbtn]

This was worth the license fee alone...

[@karatebuff]

This theme is epic!!

[@imogenimeson664]

shite more like.

[@alanzyoutube]

Best theme tune ever !

[@gladiator3543]

My word this takes me back!

[@stephenagar72]

Heard it yesterday...wonderful!

[@angelacooper2661]

I remember this programme and the tune (I was between 17 and 23) for this stage of the programme)

[@morgan180181]

Love it!

[@darrengomes2203]

The Tomorrow's World theme that gets mistaken for Antiques Roadshow, even by the Antiques Roadshow production office, as a breakfast radio DJ found!

[@marklee1194]

Skip to 0:12 for the music.

[@AssaultedPeanut]

Still triggers a mild panic to get a move on and do my French GCSE homework. I'm 45.

[@pricey130]

Loved this program as a kid

[@guitarste]

THIS IS STUNNING

[@deano72]

Beautiful ❤️

[@markygoo]

oh my god. what a blast from the past, superb theme music. the more recent themes were rubbish. shame we couldnt have visuals aswell

[@amandeepv]

Brings back memories

[@philipsweeney7935]

Takes me back!!

[@kasterborous1701]

Easily the best theme Tomorrow's World ever had.

[@Schnorbs]

Makes me still feel that the future is a bright place to be.

[@Jamie839]

"Tomorrows World never even saw the mobile phone coming, yet Rover did..."

[@dblissmn]

I think the Denton & Cook techno number from 1980 to 1985 is simply better for the show, and still feels current. This is more like the theme music to a movie about the downfall of a family of business tycoons.

[@ripperevo2011rrchamp]

If TW had continued to use this theme tune, it would probably still be going.

[@bk1409sa]

ذكريات لاتنسى 😢

[@Markjuk]

Bring back Tomorrow's World! With technology moving forward at such a rapid face it would be great to see mind blowing inventions on the box.

[@davidrobinson778]

Paul Hardcastle. That’s all I have to say on this music. I dare you to come up with a finer theme for anything.

[@80ssynthfan48]

Paul Hart.

[@marklee1194]

It is a shame that this show has been cancelled.

[@poisonousmarrownexsusgamin1804]

+Mark Lee have u seen the BBC programme called Click its not the same as Tomorrows World but its worth a watch

[@waynerz1]

Epic intro. BBC at their best!

[@simonkeating500]

Have such ironic nostalgia for this show - one of the best shows on 80s TV. Nice allusions to Purcell and curiously John Williams' Superman. Also sounds like a contender for a 'Good Morning America' news show :-)

[@NathanielWhittoUpdates]

Now that's a bop

[@terryplatt]

This theme was composed and played by Paul Hart, although not credited on the BBC CD that was issued at the time. Paul Hart also played the brilliant theme for the 1986 season of programmes for the arrival and departure of Halley's Comet. If anybody has that track, please post it on YT. I have the original 7" single, but unfortunately I don't have the technology or know-how to post it myself!

[@GavinAyling]

I don't think it mattered that they were normally wrong - I loved this "for everyone" look at the future of technology and science.

[@sophiehelfrich505]

Gavin Ayling Thank you for your post. I had no idea of this show. This recalled me for some stuff more or less similar we had on french TV in the '70 and '80s. We should see more of these show on public broadcasting channels! Wish you a nice sunday.

[@Mopantsu]

This was used to test out the new 3D audio studio mixing deck if I recall. Would love to find that version.

[@themusic2189]

The theme tune before this was futuristic and atmospheric which suited the program better. This sounds like the Antiques Roadshow.

[@ExploringHabit]

I want this played at my funeral as death is science & I will be in tomorrow's world.

[@guitarste]

I remember that 3D cd and want it!

[@andrewphippsphillips1455]

Always sounds partly like Antiques Roadshow, mixed with the music from a documentary about royalty.

[@alijanlondon]

If TW did come back it would probably have near zero production values and be a cheap BBC News Channel programme rather like 'Click'

[@melissanewton7462]

The Holiday Programme went the same way!

[@MePeterNicholls]

made by interns

[@TributesAndUnique]

This doesn't sound anything like Empire Ants.

[@zethudladla839]

TributesAndUnique also can't hear it no wait I hear traces of it

[@miamilights1936]

TributesAndUnique that's what I was thinking lmao

[@bluelight2681]

TributesAndUnique Well it was just a sample. It's kinda epic how you can turn a sample into an epic song lol

[@Angely14]

If you can't hear it you may need to hear Empire Ants again, when the melody changes to Yukimi's part, you can hear traces.

[@rsethrn9947]

TributesAndUnique looks like we came for the same reason XD but it was only a sample after all

[@ooble23]

This was my favourite of the TW themes. Gets the hairs on the back of my neck!

[@McMeevin]

I think i might put this on my Ipod, and ride my bike down the street with a big smug smile on my face.

[@Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay]

Quality bit of music...

[@musicmanoo]

sounds like antiques roadshow lol

[@kitchenaut]

This is a hymn to science.

[@Scruttock5]

@tryptychUK I'm sure I've still got the one with all the drums on it on a cassette somewhere - if I find it, I'll post it up.

[@nodemons]

@Markjuk yeah, and to think all the BBC has on that theme now is "Click" on the News Channel, it's a dire shame!

[@80ssynthfan48]

Great theme. Slightly reminiscent of Jerusalem by White Door, from the legendary synthpop album "Windows", which is no bad thing.

[@Joke9972]

I remember looking TW back in the eighties, and having seen a cube with crystals inside, and position of these crystals with a laser shot through, made it hold 4,000 hours of music (Philips didn't 'invent for you' they just didn't want their cd to be endangered by it)

[@fredericdr4214]

Theme so british I like it very much!!!

[@memati7199]

This would work perfectly as a UK National Anthem ☺️

[@arch9enius]

They need to bring this back in the style of Top Gear.

[@MrChintaro]

Bloody hell!!

[@hadorstapa]

This sounds like there’s a musical relationship to the music for Gardener’s World. Just a period thing, or the same composer?

[@KennnnnnyTucky]

Yeah funny how in an era of new tech arriving almost every day, the show that featured in ahead of time is no longer on. Fantastic theme tune.

[@mariovansmeegle]

This reminds me of the best parts of my childhood. Why oh why can't the Beeb stop wasting money on rubbish and start making shows like this again.

[@jmccallion2394]

always thought this theme summed up TW to the tee!