Spider-Man theme song
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The theme song of the 1967 cartoon show Spider-Man has become a popular standard. The lyrics were written by Academy Award winner Paul Francis Webster, while the music was composed by Bob Harris, Stu Phillips, and D. Kapross. The song begins "Spider-Man, Spider-Man / Does whatever a spider can". The 2002 and 2004 film adaptations have featured characters as buskers performing the song; Jayce Bartok and Elyse Dinh respectively.
It is very similar to the head of two popular 1960s boogies (Charlie Mingus's 1959 "Boogie Stop Shuffle", and Dave Brubeck's 1961 "Bru's Boogie Woogie") and probably based on them.
The song has been covered by:
- Aerosmith for the soundtrack of the 2002 film adaptation (albeit with altered lyrics). It is also notable that Aerosmith lead guitarist Joe Perry performed a new theme song for the 1994 Spider-Man animated series, playing the lead guitar track and speaking lyrics through a vocoder that loosely referenced the 1967 series' theme song, specifically the line "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, radioactive Spider-Man" and references to "radioactive blood" (changed to "radioactive Spider blood" for the 1994 theme).
- Apollo 440 for the original Spider-Man game created for PlayStation, Sega Dreamcast, N64 and PC by Neversoft.
- Michael Bublé for the soundtrack of the 2004 sequel.
- The punk band The Distillers have also recorded their own unique version for the Spider-Man 2 console game.
- The Hyannis Sound on their Aged 10 Years album.
- Brian May reinterpreted the theme for the 1995 BBC Radio 1 serial.
- Moxy Früvous in the 1993 album Bargainville.
- The Mr. T Experience on their 1989 album Big Black Bugs Bleed Blue Blood.
- The Ramones as a hidden track in the vinyl version of their 1995 album Adios Amigos! and their 1996 album Greatest Hits Live
- String Cheese Incident play an extended instrumental version during concerts.
- Somewhat unfaithfully by Tenacious D at concerts.
- Remixed by Norwegian group Ugress on their 2002 album Resound.
- Actor Jack Black did his own version of the theme song in a part of a Spider-Man movie spoof on MTV.
The song also was prominently sampled in the great Luke Ski and Sudden Death's comedy music hit "Peter Parker", which was Dr. Demento's top request of 2002.
