OK, any clues on where to find this on CD? or downloadable for iPod? (NOTE: I am only interested in legal, above-board approach, I am not trying to avoid paying the people who have legitimate rights.)
On iTunes, I found half a dozen songs of that name, but none are the right one. I want the Randy Newman song that’s the title song for the TV show MONK.
Monk is interesting in that it’s the only TV show ever to win the Emmy for Best Main Title Theme Music twice–the first for Jeff Beal’s charming jazz score the first season, and the second a year later for Randy Newman’s song (which has remained ever since).
For a while, they’d play the Newman on the opening credits, but the Beal on the closing credits. That was a nice balance, but I think they’ve largely discontinued the practice. I like the Newman song because it captures Adrian’s state-of-mind well, but the Beal had a light touch that worked for what’s largely a fizzy show.
There was only one case where this happened, and it tied into a inside joke. The plot of the episode involved the star of a CSI style show framed for murder. One of the women who believed he was innocent was also passing around a petition for the show to go back to its original theme song. At the end of the episode, she comes to Monk’s house to personally thank him for clearing her favorite actor. She then goes on to tell him he would be a good subject for a TV show (he doesn’t think so), and asks him to promise that if he ever gets his own TV show not to change the theme song. The original Beal theme plays over the credits.
However, a piece the Beal theme usually plays at the end of an episode during the final joke, leading into an instrumental version of Newman’s theme. And the music sometimes contains hints of Beal’s theme when Monk is his most Monkish.