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THIS PAGE: Theme Tunes | Educational Songs | Cassettes & Radio

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Theme Tunes

Here's samples of the theme tunes from nineteen different Look and Read stories in MP3 format.

Most of these have been encoded straight off the lovely digital transmissions of all the stories that we've been treated to recently, but a few are off old videos so they're noticably worse quality. The Badger Girl and Geordie Racer ones are off the story cassettes to get slightly more complete versions of the themes -- the Geordie Racer one seems to have ended up especially loud (although they've all been normalised), and that racket at the beginning of it is meant to be a flock of pigeons taking off.

There were multiple different versions of most of the themes, long and short versions and all sorts, but there's only one little bit of each here. There are plenty of other places to get these theme tunes from on the internet, so have a look around if you want alternate versions.

The BBC didn't start making schools programmes in stereo until the early 1990s, so most of these are in 64/44 mono, but from Earth Warp onwards they're in 96/44 joint-stereo (Captain Crimson seems suspiciously mono to me, but it's encoded as joint-stereo anyway).

There are no 'lyrics by' credits at the moment, because I'm not a hundred percent sure who did write the lyrics for the theme songs. Rosanna Hibbert wrote the vast majority of the educational songs, and it may have been her, Gordon Snell or even Roger Limb who came up with the theme tune words.


Joe and the Sheep Rustlers
(1973) Nasty farmers, sheep markings, coded messages, blackmail.
music by Paddy Kingsland, no lyrics
MP3 file: 28 seconds, 224 kb

Cloud Burst
(1974) Indian scientist, evil twin brother, huge computer, rain gun.
music by Roger Limb, no lyrics
MP3 file: 38 seconds, 298 kb

The King's Dragon
(1977) Archaeology, local newspapers, lifeboats, golden arm-ring.
music by Roger Limb, no lyrics
MP3 file: 28 seconds, 228 kb

Sky Hunter
(1978) Stolen falcon, daft crooks, traitorous friend, Welsh Telegram.
music by Roger Limb, no lyrics
MP3 file: 26 seconds, 211 kb

The Boy From Space
(1980) Alien boy, disappearing cars, backwards writing, space ship.
music by Paddy Kingsland, sung by Derek Griffiths
MP3 file: 38 seconds, 304 kb

Dark Towers
(1981) Old house, friendly ghost, scary knight, dodgy antique dealers.
music by Roger Limb, sung by Derek Griffiths
MP3 file: 44 seconds, 345 kb

Fair Ground!
(1982) Travelling fair, sweet shop, sabotage & theft, big wheel.
music by Roger Limb, sung by Derek Griffiths
MP3 file: 44 seconds, 351 kb

Badger Girl
(1984) Desolate moors, pony rustling, tiny church, bubble gum.
music by Peter Howell, sung by Derek Griffiths
MP3 file: 54 seconds, 430 kb

Geordie Racer
(1988) Pigeon racing, local radio, mini marathon, stolen money.
music by Roger Limb, sung by Derek Griffiths
MP3 file: 48 seconds, 377 kb (very loud!)

Through The Dragon's Eye
(1989) Friendly dragon, naughty furball things, scary skeleton/bird thing.
music by Roger Limb, sung by Derek Griffiths
MP3 file: 19 seconds, 151 kb

Sky Hunter II
(1992) Stolen falcon, daft crooks, traitorous friend, Welsh Telegram.
music by Roger Limb, sung by Derek Griffiths
MP3 file: 26 seconds, 157 kb (dodgy quality)

Earth Warp
(1994) Horrible pollution, clumsy alien, nasty reporter, ruthless tycoon.
music by Roger Limb, sung by the children of Sumics
MP3 file: 40 seconds, 476 kb

LRTV
(1995) TV station, green bugs, child labour.
music by Harold Burgon and/or Colin Izod, sung by some kids
MP3 file: 45 seconds, 268 kb (dodgy quality)

Spywatch
(1996) Scary cows, bullying adults, suspicious woman, rationing & evacuation.
music by Peter Howell, sung by some kids
MP3 file: 32 seconds, 386 kb

Captain Crimson
(1997) Comic strips, hero come-to-life, Dad in love.
music by Debbie Wiseman, no lyrics
MP3 file: 41 seconds, 488 kb

The Legend of the Lost Keys
(1998) Plotting tycoon, obstinate scientist, strange prophecies, spying housekeeper.
music by Debbie Wiseman, no lyrics
MP3 file: 31 seconds, 375 kb

Zzaap and the Word Master
(2001) Computer game, evil virus, blue bug, spelling errors!
music by Gregor Philip, no lyrics
MP3 file: 28 seconds, 340 kb

Spelling Strategies
(2002) Brains, Eyes, Ears, words.
music by Stephen Chadwick, no lyrics
MP3 file: 10 seconds, 120 kb

Spelling With The Spellits
(2002) More Brains, more Eyes, more Ears, more words.
music by Ronnie Paris, no lyrics
MP3 file: 20 seconds, 241 kb

Other sources for Look and Read music:
• TV Ark has video of the opening titles of all the 70s and 80s stories, plus loads of other schools programmes.
• You can get the Boy From Space opening theme in RealAudio format from Ian Trembirth's L&R site.
• You can get MP3s of several themes and plenty of educational songs from Necro's Domain.
• You can watch the Boy From Space opening titles in RealVideo format at the BBC site.
• There's video of a Bill The Brickie song on TV & Radio Bits.
• You can download (a dodgy version of) the Badger Girl closing theme in MP3 format from TV Cream.




Educational Songs

Coming soon: a full guide to Look and Read songs, tracing variations on the key concepts and with examples of songs from the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Here's a few songs to be going on with; unlike the files that used to be on this page, these ones are actually quite well encoded.
Note that the dates and lyrics credits given here are unconfirmed, but I do believe them to be correct.

• Magic E
(1974-1994) You need me, I'm Magic E!
Probably the most popular of all Look and Read song concepts. 'Magic E' is the 'e' which modifies the preceeding vowel sound, as in 'fate' rather than 'fat', or 'bite' rather than 'bit'. This concept had appeared in Look and Read songs since the early 1970s, but it was the Magic E Wizard character, who applies his 'magic e' to various words, that really caught on.
music by Roger Limb, lyrics by Rosanna Hibbert, performed by Derek Griffiths

Download this song (MP3 file) 54 seconds @ 64kbps = 425kb

• Bill The Brickie
(1981-1994) Why don't you build yourself a word
An enduring favourite, demonstrating morphemic structure by employing the industrious Bill to cement together bits of words - adding 'ed' to the end of a verb, or combining 'every' and 'thing' to make a brand new word. This download is a missing-word version: you will hear the 'ing' (present participle) words being assembled, then you sing them out at the right time.
music by Roger Limb, lyrics by Rosanna Hibbert, performed by Derek Griffiths

Download this song (MP3 file) 53 seconds @ 64kbps = 418kb

• Dog Detective
(1978-1992) Dog Detective is chasing 's-h'
The Dog Detective character appeared in a variety of songs, always hunting out parts of words. Sometimes he would be trying to make sense of a mystery word, other times (as here) he would be on the trail of a particular combination of letters.
music by Roger Limb, lyrics by Rosanna Hibbert, performed by Derek Griffiths and Julie Stevens

Download this song (MP3 file) 40 seconds @ 64kbps = 315kb

• The Punctuation Song
(1981-1994) Think big, big, big at the beginning
A fun song about sentence structure, pointing out the need for a capital letter (Mr Big) at the beginning, and a full stop (Mrs Full Stop Lollypop) at the end. There were also extensions to this song demonstrating exclamation and question marks.
music by Roger Limb, lyrics by Gordon Snell, performed by Derek Griffiths and Imelda Staunton

Download this song (MP3 file) 37 seconds @ 64kbps = 290kb

• I'm An Apostrophe
(1978-1992) Don't put me on the line - I go at the top!
A very short song about apostrophes: it doesn't explain what an apostrophe is or when you use one, but it does make sure you know how to draw one.
music by Roger Limb, lyrics by Gordon Snell, performed by Derek Griffiths

Download this song (MP3 file) 17 seconds @ 64kbps = 139kb

• The Boat Song
(1977) O and A went boating...
An early song (from The King's Dragon) demonstrating the 'o-a' vowel combination.
music by Roger Limb, lyrics by Rosanna Hibbert, performed by Jane Carr and Derek Griffiths

Download this song (MP3 file) 55 seconds @ 64kbps = 431kb

• Chad Song
(1996) Wot no chicken going cheap?
A modern song (from Spywatch) demonstrating the initial letter digraph 'ch', featuring the wartime Chad character used in the teaching drama bits.
music by Peter Howell, lyrics by Derek Farmer, performed by Tony Timberlake

Download this song (MP3 file) 69 seconds @ 64kbps = 545kb

Cassettes & Radio

A selection of extracts from the various Look and Read cassettes and radio series. See the Books, Videos And Stuff page for more details.

	This is BBC Education: The introduction to the 1985 radio series, which featured songs from The Boy From Space and Dark Towers (MP3 file) 33 seconds @ 32kbps mono = 132kb
	Badger Girl: Download an extract from the cassette, with Gary Watson reading the story book (MP3 file) 98 seconds @ 32kbps mono = 382kb
	Space Warp: Download the opening theme from the radio spin-off series based on Earth Warp (MP3 file) 56 seconds @ 32kbps mono = 218kb
	Spywatch: Download an extract from David Forrester's reading of the story book released on cassette (MP3 file) 63 seconds @ 32kbps mono = 250kb

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All of these clips are Copyright ©BBC and remain the property of the BBC.
You can get 'official' RealVideo clips from various stories, including several from The Boy From Space, from BBCi. CLICK HERE.

Watch & listen to .RM clips with RealPlayer. Or RealOne, whatever the hell that is

Watch .WMV clips with Windows Media Player. You probably need the latest codecs, or something

Listen to .MP3 clips with any of those other two players. Or if you enjoy downloading things, with Winamp

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THIS UNOFFICIAL WEBSITE HAS NO CONNECTION OF ANY KIND WITH LOOK AND READ OR WITH THE BBC. The Look and Read title and logo, as well as all related material, is copyright © BBC, 1967-2006. The official BBC Schools website is at www.bbc.co.uk/schools. Everything else on this website © Ben Clarke, 2000-2006. No malicious infringement of BBC copyrights is intended. Material featured at this site remains the property of the BBC or relevant copyright holders.