The theme music to Last Week Tonight With John Oliver wasn’t written for the show, but it’s a superb fit with the opening titles and energy of the programme. As images of world leaders, people in the news, iconic locations and cute animals swiftly scroll across the screen, styled like entries in an encyclopaedia complete with punning scientific Latin names, the pacy music emphasises there’s going to be an awful lot packed into the ensuing show and some very important things need to be said. When the titles cut to the studio, with John Oliver sat at his desk, the sense of urgency doesn’t let up. He pounds on the tabletop in time with the music, impatient to get on with things. Often, before Last Week Tonight has barely begun, he announces there’s ‘just time’ for the opening monologue. The power pop theme does so much to establish this breakneck feel.
Go was originally a track on Use Your Weapons, the third album by New York band Valley Lodge. The band’s frontman Dave Hill, who’s also a comedian, had previously provided music for an HBO series called Reverb. When that show’s producer Liz Stanton became the showrunner for the launch of Last Week Tonight in 2014, she thought of Hill and Valley Lodge’s 2013 song for its intro music.
She chose well. Although Hill has joked that the power pop genre is a misnamed one because it lacks power and isn’t even pop, Go’s strong, catchy melody and simple rhythm run counter to his argument. Jangly guitar, hi-hat, organ and handclaps (included as a deliberate nod to the Friends theme song I’ll Be There For You by The Rembrandts) race exuberantly out of the gate and carry us along in their wake. Joyous maximus, as Last Week Tonight’s opening titles might have it.
