RIP Alexander Courage

[Chicago Jake]

If the name "Alexander Courage" does not ring a bell, you have NOT been watching your credits! Apparently, not even the OPENING credits!! C'mon, how hard is that? Anyway, this is sad news......Jake

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Alexander Courage Dies
Star Trek Composer, Emmy winner, was 88 by Jon Burlingame

Alexander (Sandy) Courage, composer of the original Star Trek theme and an Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated arranger for TV and movies, died May 15 at the Sunrise assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades, Calif. He was 88 and had been in declining health since 2005.

Courage's fanfare for the Starship Enterprise, written in 1965 for the first of two Star Trek pilots, was heard throughout the three original seasons of the show and has been reprised in all of the Trek feature films and several of the TV series, especially Star Trek: The Next Generation in the 1980s and '90s.

Courage's eight-note brass signature for the Enterprise may be the single best-known fanfare in the world. When told that more people know it than know Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, Courage – in his typically self-deprecating fashion – said that must surely be an exaggeration.

much more:

www.filmmusicsociety.org/news_events/features/2008/052808.html

P.S. - in case you don't remember how it goes....

[Merlot Joe]

Never paid attention. Sorry Professor. See you do learn something new every day.

However only a complete dork would not recognize the song when it's played.


Joe

[Ardbeg... innit]

What is not known by most people is that Courage wrote lyrics to go with the original Start Trek theme. He ran into a royalties dispute (Roddenberry didnt want to pay them) regarding the lyrics, so they were never used... perhaps in the long run, Roddenberry was right, I doubt that the theme would have been near as memorable with them.

Beyond the rim of the starlight,
my love is wandring in star flight.
I know he'llfind
In star clustered reaches
Love, strange love
A starwoman teaches.

I know his journey ends never.
His Star Trek will go on forever.
But tell him while
He wanders his starry sea,
Remember,
Remember me.