gene roddenberry: piece of work

"Work" isn't the noun I wanted to end the title of this post with. But discretion is the better part of valor

One of the stories out of Hollywood, and I'm assuming it's true, centers on Gene Roddenberry and how he managed to snag (unethically, in my opinion, 50% of the royalties for the theme from Star Trek.

I assume you know the theme. ethereal music with a wordless female vocal. To my ears, it sounds like a theremin.  It's aired without lyrics, but there were lyrics to it:

Beyond the rim of the star light
My love is wand'ring in star flight.
I know he'll find in star-clustered reaches
Love, strange love a star-woman teaches.
I know his journey ends never.
His star trek will go on forever.
But tell him as he wanders his starry sea
Remember, remember me.

The things about it is that Alexander Courage wrote the music for the theme. Afterwards, gene Roddenberry added his lyrics. Roddenberry never expected to air the lyrics. But by writing lyrics he could claim credit as co-author and get half the royalties for the song. Courage (rihtfully) considered this unethical, but Roddenberry defended it by saying "Hey, I have to get some money somewhere. I'm sure not gonna get it out of the profits of Star Trek."

I still like Star Trek, but this bothers me.

listen long and prosper

Do you remember the background music when Captain Kirk first faces the Gorn? Or when he and Spock go at it with Lurpas? How about when he almost found himself in a fast draw with Morgan Earp? If you're a Star Trek fan -- or even if you're not -- you're probably familiar with the music. You may not know exactly which piece plays when, but it probably brings the show to mind.

Now, you can listen to these -- and other Star Trekian musical gems to your heart's content. The Wall Street Journal reports that La-La Land Recotrds has just released a fifteen-volume set of CDs featuring all the music from the original series. The WSJ reported described it better than I could (I wish I could write like this):

Even non-Trekkies will likely recognize some of the more memorable passages—like the tyrannical horn motif of the treacherous Romulans in the episode "Balance of Terror." Or the screaming trumpet threat of the mindless, planet-destroying berserker in "The Doomsday Machine."

Now, not all Star Trek music was brass-heavy and foreboding like the pieces cited above. There were the playful bits, like when Kirk and Spock are caught stealing clothes back in the 1930's, or when Scotty drinks an alien (from the Andromeda galaxy) under the table. Whatever good and bad there was in that show, the soundtrack music was arguably the best in television.

The downside to this is that the CD set is priced at $225, which places it out of the realm of impulse purchases. I suspect that the good folks at La-La Land are simply taking advantage of Trekkies. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- I believe in the free market, and recognize that we don't have any kind of fundamental right to cheap Star Trek music. But I won't be buying this collection unless the price comes down a lot. No matter how much they begs.

Ahhh ahhh ahhh. Bitter dregs.