Yahoo Movies How ‘Barney & Friends’ and a Trip to Jamaica Led to the ‘Arthur’ Theme Song
There’s nothing more instantly recognizable about Arthur than its titular yellow-sweatered, eye-glassed aardvark, but the lyrics and music of the PBS KIDS’ series theme song might come in a close second.
A “simple message” millennials and Gen Z can practically sing in their sleep, the song famously encourages listeners to turn both inward (“listen to your heart, listen to the beat”) and outward (“listen to the rhythm of the street”) in order to connect to those around, work together and make things better.
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“It just spoke to both Marc and me because it really captured the essence of what we were hoping to do with the song — about believing in yourself and about being open to all the people you meet every day when you’re walking down the street,” Greenwald explained to The Hollywood Reporter.
According to executive producer Carol Greenwald, the journey to cementing that musical message in pop culture history began with a blind pitch request to composers and lyricists, initiated by then producer Cassandra Schafhausen. The composition and lyrics of Judith Henderson and Jerry De Villiers Jr. were selected as the winning entry, which was later performed and recorded by Ziggy Marley in Jamaica using a rough vocal guide track.
Brown says the writing was ultimately “a community effort” and one that he wanted to distance from the theme of another popular children’s show at the time: Barney & Friends.
“As a parent, I wasn’t crazy about the theme song,” Brown said. “I and Carol Greenwald wanted a theme song that celebrated children in a way that felt right. All of those things that are in the theme song reflected what our goals were at the time, what we wanted to do with the series.”
Once the lyrics were set, Greenwald says they moved to figure out the music, with a song Ziggy Marley had created for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation’s family concert event “For Our Children” catching her ear.
“Ziggy did a lot of music for it and there was this one song we thought ‘Oh, this is so fun and it has a really great feel and wouldn’t it be great to get Ziggy Marley?'” she recalled.
It excited her, she said, because the reggae artist presented an opportunity for kids to be exposed to music they might not be familiar with. “Some kids are really familiar with it but some others aren’t, like how some kids know classical and others will maybe learn from seeing Yo-Yo Ma or some don’t know jazz and will learn it from seeing Josh Redman.” (Both made guest appearances during Arthur’s 25-year run.)
With Marley’s past experience in children’s music, the duo agreed he was a good musical fit, so Greenwald called his manager. Brown remembers trying to court Marley, “their first choice,” as a sure effort. “The poor guy, I mean, we just kept pummeling him with requests,” Brown recalls, laughing.
“[Marley’s manager] was like, ‘Oh, yeah, that sounds fun.’ Of course, nobody’s ever heard of Arthur at this point, except through the books. But the Marley’s have not,” Greenwald said of her phone call.
Once Marley did agree, there was a single condition: they had to go to Jamaica to record it. “I was like, ‘Well that’s a sacrifice but we’re willing to make it,'” Greenwald laughs.
She then hopped on a plane with Arthur‘s music producer Jeff Zahn and traveled to the Bob Marley Museum, where they would spend a day — 24 hours less than the expected two-day plan — to record the song.
“It was an amazing experience because we worked with the whole Marley family,” Greenwald said. “Bob was obviously gone, but many of his kids sang the background vocals. Rita Marley came into the control room while we were there and I’m like fangirling. She said, ‘Oh yeah, I like the sound of this.’ The engineer was Bob Marley’s engineer who always worked with him.”
“Ziggy came in, he did his piece, and the rest of the kids came in — they were from very young to teenagers,” she continued. “It was just a fabulous day.”
The same song, which in its original recording runs for nearly two minutes, plays during both the title sequence and end credits, was used for all 25 seasons of Arthur, and has since been officially (for the show) and unofficially (by fans) remixed multiple times.
“Believe in Yourself” has become so iconic that it got its own The Late Show with Stephen Colbert spin in 2017, courtesy of original performer Marley, as well as Jon Batiste and Chance the Rapper.
“I have to tell you, there is nothing more wonderful than to walk into an elementary school and to have the entire school singing that theme song. It just is the best,” Brown told THR.
But the song didn’t just influence its young (and older) viewers. Arthur‘s creator says its powerful message to believe in yourself — and a meeting with Fred Rodgers — even helped him name his book, Believe in Yourself: What We Learned from Arthur.
Released on Jan. 25 to celebrate America’s longest-running kids’ show, the book features over 60 pieces of all-new artwork as well as funny moments and heartfelt messages from the Elmwood City gang.
“When I came up with the idea to use the theme song as the title, I was remembering a day with Fred Rogers in my studio,” he said. “While the crew was setting everything up, he had a chance to take me aside and we talked. The first thing he said to me was ‘Marc, tell me about your grandma Thora,’ and it was like he reached into my soul. Because she was a real important person in my childhood. It wasn’t the best childhood, but I got through it and I had really good people there like her.”
After Brown explained how his grandmother, who saved all his art and put $5 a week towards his college education, had influenced his life, Rodgers offered a personal response that has resonated with Brown to this day.
“Fred said to me, ‘Oh, Marc, she sounds a lot like my grandpa McFeely. He was that person in my childhood who believed in me,'” Brown recalls. “What he said next just gave me chills. He said, ‘Marc, every child needs just one person in their life to believe in them to make it in the world.'”
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