“THE MOST CONTAGIOUS TUNE EVER HEARD”
Schifrin, also a jazz pianist and classical conductor, had a remarkable career in music that included working with Dizzy Gillespie and recording with Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan. But perhaps his biggest contribution was the instantly recognizable score to television’s Mission: Impossible, which fuelled the just-wrapped, decades-spanning feature film franchise led by Tom Cruise.
Written in the unusual 5/4 time signature, the theme – Dum-dum DUM DUM dum-dum DUM DUM – was married to an on-screen self-destruct clock that kicked off the TV show, which ran from 1966 to 1973. It was described as “only the most contagious tune ever heard by mortal ears” by New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane and even hit No. 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968.
Schifrin originally wrote a different piece of music for the theme song but series creator Bruce Geller liked another arrangement Schifrin had composed for an action sequence.
“The producer called me and told me, ‘You’re going to have to write something exciting, almost like a logo, something that will be a signature, and it’s going to start with a fuse,'” Schifrin told the AP in 2006. “So I did it and there was nothing on the screen. And maybe the fact that I was so free and I had no images to catch, maybe that’s why this thing has become so successful – because I wrote something that came from inside me.”
When director Brian De Palma was asked to take the series to the silver screen, he wanted to bring the theme along with him, leading to a creative conflict with composer John Williams, who wanted to work with a new theme of his own. Out went Williams and in came Danny Elfman, who agreed to retain Schifrin’s music.
Hans Zimmer took over scoring for the second film, and Michael Giacchino scored the next two. Giacchino told NPR he was a hesitant to take it on, because Schifrin’s music was one of his favorite themes of all time.
“I remember calling Lalo and asking if we could meet for lunch,” Giacchino told NPR. “And I was very nervous – I felt like someone asking a father if I could marry their daughter or something. And he said, ‘Just have fun with it.’ And I did.”
Mission: Impossible won Grammys for best instrumental theme and best original score from a motion picture or a TV show. In 2017, the theme was entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
U2 members Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. covered the theme while making the soundtrack to 1996’s first installment; that version peaked at No 16 on the Billboard 200 with a Grammy nomination.
A 2010 commercial for Lipton tea depicted a young Schifrin composing the theme at his piano while gaining inspiration through sips of the brand’s Lipton Yellow Label. Musicians dropped from the sky as he added elements.
