I’ve had Neal Hefti’s Batman Theme stuck in my head pretty much non-stop since I posted it last Thursday. Especially the blatty low brass lines under it all. Sticky, sticky stuff there for my susceptible music mind. Which got me thinking… why? What makes it so infectious?

I gave up on that line of inquiry rather quickly, since the music is so intertwined in my memory with 1) the visuals from the television show; 2) the periods and places I’ve heard it, as sound and image are both strong mnemonic triggers for me; and 3) the “hook”… is it societal or universal? If I were to expose someone who’d never heard it before, never been exposed to any of the incarnations of Batman and was socialized in a completely different culture than the one that gave the world the Batman Theme, would they respond in the same way? Would they have it stuck in their head forever more? The elusive universal hook, does it actually exist? And what would I do with it if I stumbled across it?

Now that there’s crazy talk.

Which brings us to Showtime’s [television] series, Dexter. In short, there’s this guy (Dexter) who’s on the Miami Police Department’s payroll as a blood spatter expert. Crime scene forensics stuff. He was adopted as a child by a police officer, who later discovered Dex exhibiting many of the warning flags of a potential serial killer.

1. The majority are single, white males.
2. They are often intelligent, with IQs in the “bright normal” range.
3. Despite their high IQs, they do poorly in school, have trouble holding down jobs, and often work menial jobs.
4. They tend to come from unstable families.
5. As children, they are typically abandoned by their fathers and raised by domineering mothers.
6. Their families often have criminal, psychiatric and alcoholic histories.
7. They often are mistrustful of their parents.
8. It is common to find that as children, they were abused—psychologically, physically and/or sexually—by a family member.
9. Many spend time in institutions as children and have records of early psychiatric problems.
10. They have high rates of suicide attempts.
11. From an early age, many are intensely interested in voyeurism, fetishism, and sadomasochistic pornography.
12. More than 60 percent wet their beds beyond the age of 12.
13. Many are fascinated with fire starting.
14. They are involved in sadistic activity or tormenting small creatures.

So what does he do? He trains Dex to be a killer himself, one who preys only on other killers who escape the justice system’s grasp. Fast forward 20-ish years and there’s the setting of the show.

Annnnd… cue Batman Theme. Heh. (Fun home game, kids, see how many hits your significant other/best friend/that guy in your mirror has on the list!)

Film composer Rolfe Kent (Thank You For Smoking is a good one [the music especially, I mean] that he’s done) arranged the Dexter Main Title music, and it’s sticky as all hell. From rolfekent.com

The theme music for the Showtime series DEXTER was composed and recorded in August 2006. An interesting task, as it was to be both sly and witty yet dark and with a hint of Miami about it. So it features guiro, latin percussion, and also Turkish saz and a vaguely reggae beat. It was all timed to match the opening title sequence.

Here’s Dexter Main Title by Rolfe Kent, set to the video sequence used for the opening credits, sans main credits. 

“With music, you can look for substance, not the superficial and you have a chance of communicating a very telling emotional core that might not otherwise be noticed or tolerated.”

-Rolfe Kent

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