The Great Algorithm recently served me a flight of 1980s horror nostalgia through one of its many exploitation outlets. I felt a twinge of excitement when I saw the Gizmo’s-Stubby-Hands-Reaching-Out-Of-A-White-Shoebox poster image of my troubled youth.
I knew, before I read or heard, that I was about to be treated to one of the most iconic jingles in horror history: The … uh … song from Gremlins. The Gremlins Song. Gremlins Title Theme.
Like me, you might just be learning that this song is actually called “The Gremlin Rag.”
As the opening wah-wah synths and weird, horny cat wails kicked in, my first thought was: Haha, classic Danny Elfman.
Which is probably exactly the sort of thought that would piss off legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith, who actually composed the “Gremlins Rag,” as well as “Ave Satani” from The Omen, Some Stuff From The Aliens Franchise, and Mulan (apparently).
My second thought was: Oh my god. This is too slow.
To quote Barack Hussein Obama, “Don’t get it twisted.” “The Gremlin Rag” is a fucking wonder and I love it and I felt real, genuine human guilt for assuming it was written by Danny Elfman. I have zero notes for the actual content of this song. Even my stratospheric hubris doesn’t extend so far.
My issue is, entirely, with the pacing of this song, and as I listened to this sober, technical rendition with a “No Fun 😠” tempo, I began to wonder if I had somehow Mandela Effected myself about what I was certain to be a boisterous musical romp as chaotic and driven as the Gremlins themselves.
Is the “The Gremlin Rag” actually slow?
In order to approach this with any degree of seriousness, the first thing I have to ask myself is, “Is ‘The Gremlin Rag’ actually slow, or is it merely not as fast as my beleaguered brain thinks it should be?”
According to this site with an inexplicable system of metrics, “The Gremlin Rag” is 120 BPM (that’s “Beats Per Minute,” not “Billy Peltzer Mistakes”). In musical terms, a categorically slow piece of music might be 76-108 BPM (andante), while our beloved Rag falls on a spectrum between the highest end of moderato (moderate, incredibly), to the lowest end of allegro (what you probably think of as a song starting to be “fast”).
I’m forced to acknowledge that at least in technical terms, you probably couldn’t call “The Gremlins Rag” a slow song, but firmly within the realm of moderate tempo, and that due to both the nature of the composition and the subject matter (chaotic, apeshit gremlins), it just feels fucking slow.
For context, what are some other well-known songs around 120 BPM?
“Stayin’ Alive” by The Bee Gees – Turns out 120 BPM is the perfect tempo for doing CPR.
“Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey – Arguably more ballad than banger.
“Feliz Navidad” by Boney M. – The speed metal of Christmas songs.
Okay, but why did I expect it to be faster?
We’ve established that the Rag is at least a moderate tempo song, but that this is no time for moderation. I want it fast and I want it now, but what’s worse is that I have a really specific tempo in my head and my inner discord is flowing from the fact that the song I’m hearing doesn’t match up to the song I expect to hear.
Does a faster version – the one I’m actually thinking of – exist?
It seemed likely that there was, out in the wilderness, a cover version that thwarted Mr. Goldsmith’s unseemly temperance.
I haven’t seen Secrets of the Mogwai, but I left no stone unturned, and while I enjoyed this riff by Sherri Chung, I felt like it was approaching greatness while still falling short. Using this handy tool, I was able to pin the tempo around 136 BPM. A marked improvement, but not, to my ear, the boisterous assault I still craved. But we are, at least, firmly allegro, which means we’re on the right track.
Secrets of the Mogwai is relatively recent, so I knew it couldn’t be informing my ancient memories, but now I knew that at least one other person listened to “The Gremlin Rag” and thought, “This needs to go harder.”
But not hard enough.
Something is rockin’ in the state of Denmark
Okay. Okay. Okay! Yeah!
This is much more like it! This joyful rendition by The Danish National Symphony Orchestra is firmly allegro at (by my clicking) about 142 BPM. That is an ~18% increase in tempo over the plodding original at 120 BPM.
But there are three important pieces of information here:
- According to the thumbnail, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra has brought Strahd von Zarovich in as a bassist, and that rules.
- “Gremlins II“
- “Gaming in Symphony”
Gremlins 2? Gaming? What?
Oh…. Oh no. Oh god no. It’s all flooding back.
I was 11 years old when Gremlins 2 was released in 1990, which means I was 12 in 1991 when this officially licensed game came to NES. I was squarely in the marketing crosshairs, obsessed with the franchise, and put countless hours into this impossibly shitty iteration – a disappointment I had all but blocked out until just now.
I could detour deep into the mechanical failings of this unfortunate misfire but sadly, I must digress, take what useful data I can, and run.
Which is nothing, because while the Gremlins 2: The New Batch NES OST isn’t terrible as Nintendo chiptune OSTs go, “The Gremlin Rag” tune does not appear in it at any point. lol. lmao.
Which means that the Danish National Symphony Orchestra made this connection an oblique one, presumably as an excuse to play a fun song at a fun tempo. Good.
I may have struck paydirt in terms of the fun, bouncy rendition I’d been hoping for, but I’m left with the uncertainty of knowing that despite this lovely composition having gotten it “right,” that it still isn’t old enough to be the seed of my expectations. In fact I had never heard it before embarking on this nothing-ass quest.
But it got me thinking.
Second Time’s The Charm
Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Of course. The Rag might not have appeared in the NES game, but the NES game was based on the movie sequel which was, itself, an even more joyfully boisterous and chaotic self-satire of the original Gremlins. M-maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong place all along.
Jerry Goldsmith, you crazy son of a bitch, you’ve done it. At 146 BPM, the Gremlins 2 credit sequence song is the iconic version nested in my long-suffering brain. It’s even jauntier than the delightful Danish cover, and represents the perfect bookend to this vaunted franchise. Jerry is both the architect of my misery and my salvation.
We have arrived at the end of our journey and, as though guided through this time of growth and exploration by a musical shaman, I feel as though I’ve waded through the leechy morass of “GIZMO SONG – HEAVY METAL COVER” and “Soberly Pleasant Gremlins Piano Tutorial” to arrive here again, where I began, at the feet of Jerry Goldsmith, humbled.
I promise I will never mistake you for Danny Elfman again.
