What Is The Sopranos Theme Song?
“Woke Up This Morning” by Alabama 3.
But the story is stranger than:
TV producer finds gangster song.
Alabama 3 are British.
They are not from Alabama.
There are more than three of them.
And “Woke Up This Morning” was not written about the Mafia.
The song was inspired by a real British domestic-abuse case involving Sara Thornton, who killed her violent husband.
Then David Chase heard it and realised its imagery sounded uncannily appropriate for Tony Soprano.
Which version does The Sopranos use?
The “Chosen One Mix”.
The original “Woke Up This Morning” appeared on Alabama 3’s 1997 album Exile on Coldharbour Lane.
The Sopranos opening sequence uses an edited version of the Chosen One Mix.
That distinction matters if you search for the song and discover a version that doesn’t sound exactly like the television intro.
Search specifically for:
Woke Up This Morning – Chosen One Mix.
Who are Alabama 3?
A British band formed in London.
Their music combines:
acid house
blues
country
gospel
electronic music
rock.
The name intentionally creates confusion.
In the United States they have sometimes been billed as A3 to avoid issues around the existing country group Alabama.
Their sound is almost impossible to explain cleanly.
Imagine:
blues preacher.
Electronic club.
Country outlaw.
South London.
That gets close.
What inspired “Woke Up This Morning”?
Sara Thornton.
Alabama 3’s Rob Spragg has explained that the song was inspired by Thornton, who suffered years of abuse from her husband and eventually killed him.
Spragg explicitly rejected the assumption that he wrote the song about gangsters.
That changes the song considerably.
What sounds inside The Sopranos like:
dangerous man wakes up ready for business
came from a story involving an abused woman finally retaliating against a violent partner.
Context can completely rewrite listening.
Why did David Chase think it was perfect for Tony Soprano?
The mother imagery.
Power.
Destiny.
Threat.
Spragg has recalled Chase telling him that the lyrics sounded like Tony Soprano and his relationship with his mother Livia.
That is especially important because The Sopranos isn’t really just:
Mafia show.
It’s also about:
family
mothers
psychology
inheritance
whether people can escape who they were raised to become.
The theme song quietly introduces all of that.
What happens in the opening sequence?
Tony drives from New York toward his New Jersey home.
The viewer sees:
roads
industrial landscape
toll booths
urban infrastructure
suburbs.
The sequence tells you where the show lives.
Not glamorous Manhattan.
Not cinematic Sicily.
New Jersey.
Tony smokes a cigar.
Drives.
Looks ordinary.
Meanwhile the music tells you:
do not mistake ordinary for safe.
Was a different song supposed to play every episode?
David Chase reportedly considered changing opening music between episodes.
“Woke Up This Morning” became too perfect to abandon.
That was probably wise.
A repeated theme develops ritual.
Episode begins.
Road.
Cigar.
Song.
You are back inside the world.
Changing the music would have lost that familiarity.
What genre is “Woke Up This Morning”?
Alternative dance.
Trip-hop.
Acid house.
Blues rock.
Electronic.
Gospel-influenced.
That genre confusion is an advantage.
The Sopranos itself blends:
crime
family drama
black comedy
psychology.
A straightforward gangster-rock song would have been much less interesting.
Why does the voice sound American?
Performance.
Alabama 3 deliberately use American blues, gospel and country vocabulary inside their music.
That can make listeners assume they are from the US.
They are from Brixton.
Which is an excellent trick.
The Sopranos therefore opens with a song that sounds authentically American but comes from London musicians performing through American musical influences.
Did The Sopranos make the band famous?
It gave them a permanent global identity.
Alabama 3 had a career before the show.
Afterwards:
the Sopranos band.
That association can be both useful and limiting.
But there are much worse cultural destinies than having millions of people hear your song at the beginning of one of television’s most acclaimed series.
Songs like the Sopranos theme
Alabama 3 – Ain’t Goin’ to Goa
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand
Massive Attack – Angel
Tom Waits – Way Down in the Hole
Morphine – Buena
Mark Lanegan – Hit the City
The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter
If you like the dark blues/electronic atmosphere rather than the TV connection, begin with Massive Attack and Alabama 3’s wider catalogue.
Why is the song so inseparable from Tony Soprano now?
Repetition.
Eighty-plus hours of television can permanently change a piece of music.
Listeners hear the opening.
They immediately see:
Tony.
Car.
New Jersey.
That’s the power of title sequences.
Music becomes branding at an emotional level.
What is The Sopranos theme song?
“Woke Up This Morning” by Alabama 3.
Specifically, the Chosen One Mix.
It wasn’t written about the Mafia.
It was inspired by a real domestic-abuse case.
Then David Chase heard Tony Soprano inside it.
And one of television’s greatest theme-song marriages happened completely by accident.