I always thought “Stars and Stripes Forever” by Sousa was just a march until recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drba7wWZ5wg
Sleigh Ride. Even after singing it a few times, I still think of it (and prefer it) as an instrumental piece . . . but I wish they’d omit the “jazzy” part.
Listen to the Johnny Mathis version on YouTube sometime. I’ve always thought it would make the perfect background to the ultimate gay video. :rolleyes:
This has always been one of my favorite TV themes:
I was quite surprised to find it has English lyrics; to me, it sounds like something you would hear when you enter some dark, smoke-filled French bistro, maybe with Edith Piaf singing on a tiny spotlit stage.
Here’s another with two sets of lyrics (you have to watch the whole video to hear both):
I must say, I’m partial to the second version!
Here’s another: the theme from The Protectors, starring Robert Vaughn and Nyree Dawn Porter:
Apparently, there are also lyrics to The Avengers TV theme (aka Laurie Johnson’s “The Shake”), but I can’t find them anywhere. 
The Star Trek theme music (original show). Gene Roddenberry wrote some truly awful lyrics to it so he could get royalties each time it played.
IIRC the opening instrumental theme from Bonanza had words to it the first episode.
According to this oft-revived threat, Scott Joplin’s “the Entertainer” may or may not have lyrics.
Again, there are at least two different versions, plus a truly awful third version that was vetoed by NBC:
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Bonanza-lyrics-Johnny-Cash/A3A4570E5518F46C48256DEA000A6B82
Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz. (It even had lyrics originally.)
The MASH theme.
Love is Blue.
The TV show theme for Bewitched actually had lyrics.
The theme to “Mama’s Family”, titled “Bless My Happy Home” has lyrics, although it was decided not to use them on the show. Vicki Lawrence often sings them at her live shows.
thanks terentii
Neal Hefti’s theme to The Odd Couple (introduced in the movie, carried over to the TV series) had lyrics…
No matter where they go, they are known as the couple,
They’re never seen alone, so they’re known as the couple,
As I’ve indicated,
They are never quite separated,
They are peas in a pod,
Don’t you think that it’s odd…
The Star Trek theme has lyrics, but that’s an interesting story in itself. Apparently Gene Roddenberry wanted a cut of the royalties for the music, so he slapped lyrics on it even though they were never once sung on the show.
I can’t find my link to it, but Dick Van Dyke sang the lyrics to the theme of the Dick Van Dyke Show on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.
Oops, sorry…I overlooked that someone mentioned the Star Trek theme upthread. My bad.
As RealityChuck hinted at, just about every instrumental TV theme song out there has lyrics that were never intended to be heard. The lyricist gets a royalty payment every time the song is played (i.e., every week) even if an instrumental version is used.
The first time I encountered this was “Remembering You,” the closing theme to All in the Family. Roger Kellaway wrote the music, and Carol O’Connor wrote the lyrics. I guess O’Connor asked for more money and Norman Lear decided to take it out of a different budget.
There was actually a version of it on the charts for a while back in the '60s. Don’t remember who sang it, though.
EDIT: Steve Lawrence, of course! :smack:
As for Roddenberry and the ST theme … well, he was the show’s creator and producer, and fancied himself something of a poet; plus, he claimed to have strong feelings about the music. Basically, there was no reason for him NOT to pen a lyric if he chose to do so.
While Courage later claimed to have been screwed out of half the royalties, he had been in the business long enough to know that you should read a contract before you sign it. Roddenberry later sent him a long letter (reproduced in Star Trek: The Real Story by Bob Justman and Herb Solow) recalling a conversation they had had on the topic long before the show debuted, in an attempt to jog Courage’s memory. It irks me that such allegations surfaced only after Roddenberry died and was no longer able to defend himself.
As for the sequence of events leading up to the “dismissal” of the vocalist … well, my memories from watching TOS before it was remastered are somewhat different. I remember every version of the theme, and am pretty sure she was heard only in the third season, after the titles were reshot (in blue instead of yellow), though I can no longer find the original version of the second year’s theme on-line. Until I can come up with it, I’ll admit to the possibility that I might be wrong. :rolleyes:
Another one of my favorite TV themes with, uhm, lyrics: :rolleyes:
