Released 25 July 2000 Producer(s) Chad Fischer | Genre Alternative rock | |
Length 3:43 (Album Version)
3:38 (Soundtrack Version)
3:32 (Single Version) Writer(s) Chad Fischer, Chris Link, Tim Bright | ||
“Superman” is a song by American band Lazlo Bane from their album All the Time in the World. It is most noted for being the theme song to the American TV series Scrubs.
Contents
Background and release
"Superman" was first released on the soundtrack album for the film The Tao of Steve in 2000, a year prior to its first appearance in Scrubs, though it was not featured in the film itself.
Zach Braff, the star of Scrubs, was impressed by the song and suggested the use of the song as the theme to executive producer Bill Lawrence.
Scrubs proved to be successful and "Superman" was later issued on the first show’s soundtrack and as a promotional single. Around the same time, in September 2002, the song was released on Lazlo Bane's second studio album All the Time in the World.
Versions and structure
The soundtrack version of "Superman", both Scrubs' and The Tao Of Steve's, has duration 3:38 and omits the intro count-in which is present on the album All the Time in the World, making the duration of the latter 3:43.
The single version of the song also doesn’t have the count-in, but it is 5 seconds shorter than the soundtrack version due to slightly faster speed.
The last episode of the eight's season of Scrubs "My Finale" features a portion of the acoustic instrumental version of "Superman".
"Superman" samples the drum track of "Impeach The President" by '70s soul group The Honey Drippers.
Music video
Zach Braff directed the song's music video. It shows behind-the-scenes footage from the Scrubs set and features several of the show's cast members, including Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke and Ken Jenkins. The video was filmed at the abandoned North Hollywood Medical Center, which doubles as the show's location Sacred Heart Hospital.
A small video productions company, Clay Cow Productions, made their own music video for the song, which was praised by Chad Fischer. The video illustrates the lyrics of the song with plasticine characters and set.
Reception
Chad Fischer, Tim Bright and Chris Link as composers of "Superman" along with Scrubs’ composer Jan Stevens won BMI TV Music Award of 2003 and 2004 for the show's theme song and music.
In 2014 Mashable included the song in their list of 25 iconic TV theme songs of all time.
In 2016 New York Observer ranked the song #27 in their list of The 30 Best TV Theme Songs of All Time.
Cover versions
The song was covered by The Blanks, who played members of Ted's Band, The Worthless Peons, on Scrubs, and was released as the opening track of the band's debut album Riding the Wave in 2004. Their version was also featured as the outro to the final episode of the eighth season, "My Finale", during the run of the blooper reel.
"Superman" was also covered by American singer-songwriter WAZ and released as a digital download single in 2009. This version was used as a theme song for the ninth season of Scrubs.