Theme Song
I noticed several people asked, so I'll put up this thread, instead of replying to each one.
There is a band called "Texas," which is from Glasgow, Scotland, founded by Johnny McElhone 1986 and feature Sharleen Spiteri on lead vocals. The name is from the 1984 Wim Wenders movie Paris, Texas.
They had a song called "So Called Friend," with a portion that goes like this:
Do you think you're close with all your promises
Do you think I act strange when you talk to me
It's cause I don't see you
Yeh I'm gonna make you wonder if you're my friend
Yeh I may as well tell you, you'll never be my friend
Aah that's the way I choose them, all my friends
The telephone always rings when you've got success
You only want us when we're at our best
But we don't hear you.
It's a response to people who made promises to them, and never kept them, and now that the band is becoming famous, all the people who snubbed them before are suddenly calling them up and acting like they've been friends all along.
The snippet that is the Ellen theme is actually an inversion, and it goes like this:
You know I'm close, I keep my promises;It wasn't actually used until the title of the show had been changed from "These Friends of Mine" to "Ellen," but it makes a lot of sense when you remember it was supposed to be a sitcom about a close group of friends, which premiered the same season that NBC premiered Friends, which is why ABC changed the title at the last minute.
I'll always be there when you talk to me.
I'm not sure if "close" is supposed to mean "physically close," or if we're supposed to understand it in the way it was used up until about WWII, when it meant "private," or by extension, "able to keep a secret, and thus a good confidante." I think it is still sometimes used that way in the UK, although I don't think that is the way it's being used in the original song, where it sounds like "close to the mark," as in the expression "close, but no cigar"; however, that can't be what is intended in the "Ellen" version. It may be that the word was just kept because it scans, and it means whatever you want it to mean. share