I'll Be There for You - Theme From "Friends"

This was the theme song of the TV show Friends, which went on the air in 1994 and quickly became a ratings powerhouse. The theme was written by the songwriters Allee Willis and Michael Skloff. Says Willis: "I had seen the pilot, and that one line ('I'll Be There For You') had been given to me by Michael Skloff, who had started on the music, and it was just supposed to be about the loyalty of friends. That no matter how screwed up your life was, I'll be there for you."

It is fairly rare for a TV show theme song to become a hit. The themes usually sound great for the 30 seconds they are on the air, but make terrible full length songs. This was an exception, as the popularity of the show exposed the theme to a mass audience that loved the incredibly catchy tune, and soon there was demand for a full-length version of the theme. Says Willis: "It was never, ever to this day released as a single. It was just DJs who made a cassette of the song and just started playing it. And it became the #1 airplay record of the year, but the Rembrandts never wanted it out as a single because they didn't write the song. So they kind of bit off their nose to spite their face. At that point, the only way they could get the Rembrandts to do the record was if they got songwriting credit. So the song needed a bridge, and it needed a second verse lyric, and they wrote that. They don't have credit on the theme, but they have it on the record."

This song's success did a great deal to help promote the show, as the constant radio play provided great, free advertising for the series. You would think that TV producers would follow this formula and put more effort into their theme songs, but just the opposite happened: TV theme songs began disappearing as producers demanded more time for show content and didn't want to pay to create original songs. This was the last TV theme that was made into a hit song - at least in America. In the UK, "Boss Of Me" and "Can We Fix It?" made the charts.