Friday, November 18, 2011

On great comic songs through history

OK, fair warning - this list probably doesn't have YOUR favorite superhero song. Over seventy years, there have been a lot of songs written about comic book and comic strip heroes. There's been musicals by the (wait for it...) score, like Annie, Lil' Abner, It's a Bird, It's a Plane It's Superman and even Doonesbury. There have been novelty numbers, serious songs, and some tunes so iconic they ended up in the movie adaptation of the hero decades after their creation. Ana amazing assortment of artists have contributed music to superhero films; even Jim Steinman (indisputable mastermind behind Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell series) did a rendition of "Original Sin" for The Shadow.  And some years later, he got to write a few songs for the  Batman musical that Tim Burton was working on.  I write a bit about that over here on my Tumblr feed, where I post smaller points and thoughts.

Here's a short list of a few songs inspired by the comics you've likely heard of, and hopefully a few you haven't.