Superman News: "The Love Theme"

by Mike Matessino, Album Co-producer

I just can't understand why soundtrack enthusiasts have been clamoring for twenty years to have "The Flying Sequence" without Margot Kidder's vocal track. Is it that they want to hear the underscore clearly... or do they want the vocal track to go away? I'll leave that for others to answer.

Now that I've heard and worked with the entire SUPERMAN score, I think "The Flying Sequence" has emerged as one of my favorite cues. And yes, hearing it without the vocal track does increase one's appreciation of it. However, our quest to present the non-vocal version turned out to be far more interesting than we ever imagined.

As most of us know, in this particular period of John Williams' career, it was his wont to compose concert arrangements of the main themes for his large-scale epic scores which were not heard in the films themselves. This began, I guess, with "Princess Leia's Theme" in STAR WARS, and continued in many scores, including one of my favorites, the orchestral version of "Star of Bethlehem" from HOME ALONE. Williams followed this pattern in SUPERMAN by writing the "Love Theme," but when the end credit crawl was at last assembled, it was so long that the producers needed the "Love Theme" to cover the additional length. It remains a beautiful and timeless selection from the Williams canon, and on the Rhino CD we have placed it where it appears in the film: following the "End Title March."

There were, of course, lyrics written to accompany of this theme, in the form of "Can You Read My Mind," penned by long-time Williams collaborator Leslie Bricusse. The intended showcase for the song within the film itself was to be during Lois Lane's night flight with Superman, but it turns out that the version we have heard under Margot Kidder's vocal track for two decades is not what was first written and recorded. Had the end credits been as short as originally expected, viewers' impression of the "love theme" could have been quite different. Working, as we did, from six-track elements used to complete the actual film soundtrack mix, it was a shock when something completely alien appeared on the tracks at the place where we expected to at last hear the non-vocal version of this track... synthesizers and a backbeat!

As it turns out, the original intention for "Can You Read My Mind" was for it to be actually sung during the flying sequence, the lyrics set against a very typical seventies synth arrangement with a mellow disco beat. There was a great deal of debate over whether or not to include this version on the Rhino release. One opinion was that it tarnished one's memories of the score, but in the end, as both Nick Redman and myself are fans of earlier Williams scores like CINDERELLA LIBERTY and THE PAPER CHASE, we decided that we had to include it.

Documentation on the original assembly of this score is very shaky, probably because there was such a frenzy to get it finished in time for its December 1978 release. What we do know is that it was intended first as a song, but it is unknown who the vocalist was supposed to be. At some point, Margot Kidder recorded her spoken vocal, and an additional synthesizer containing the melody line was added. In the end, someone with vision (we can only speculate who) apparently realized that this arrangement would date the picture, and Williams then re-recorded the fully orchestral version which appears in the film. This music was located on a separate reel, suggesting that the change happened very late in the game. For the Rhino CD, we decided to present this final version of "The Flying Sequence" (sans vocal) within the chronological progression of the score. We did this in order to follow some sort of logic in our presentation of the alternate version.

Following the "End Title March" and "Love Theme," we first present the alternate pop version with Margot Kidder's vocal included. This is followed by "The Flying Sequence" as it was presented on the original Warner Brothers album, again with the vocal included. So what you get is the first, unused version of the cue, followed by the final version as it is heard in the film. Then, following this eight-minute span, the pop version is presented again, without the vocal, in order to spare soundtrack collectors another twenty years of anguish. In all seriousness, the alternate version is fascinating in that it illuminates the evolutionary nature of the scoring process, particularly on a complex and musically challenging film as SUPERMAN. Hopefully, those not entirely satisfied with our solution from a sequencing standpoint will access the ingenious programming function on their players.

In closing, I'd like to just briefly mention the interesting secondary motif that appears in conjunction with love theme. It appears three times in the score, and since none of those cues were on the original soundtrack album, it usually isn't mentioned. Perhaps because it is re-used in SUPERMAN II (in some cues that were on the album for that film), I seem to think of it as being associated with Clark Kent. However, its first appearance on the Rhino CD is in "Star Ship Escapes," which covers the final destruction of Krypton. It later appears both before and after "The Flying Sequence," in the cues "The Terrace" and "Lois and Clark." I'm curious to hear any thoughts about this motif, and to get you started, I invite you to check out our website at www.sharplinearts.com for a vital bit of research. Also, stay tuned here at FSM for a final article covering the source music and other miscellany from SUPERMAN. Right now, gotta fly.

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