The Wire (TV series) - Wkp - Music [with audio clips of each season's opening theme]:

The opening theme is 'Way Down in the Hole', a gospel- and blues-inspired song written by Tom Waits for his 1987 album Franks Wild Years. Each season uses a different recording of it against a different opening sequence, with the theme being performed, in order, by

The Blind Boys of Alabama S1
Tom Waits S2
The Neville Brothers S3
'DoMaJe' S4 *
Steve Earle. S5

*Season four's version of 'Way Down in the Hole' was arranged and recorded specifically for the show, and the group, DoMaJe, is made up of five Baltimore teenagers: Ivan Ashford, Markel Steele, Cameron Brown, Tariq Al-Sabir, and Avery Bargasse.

The closing theme is 'The Fall', composed by Blake Leyh, who is also the show's music supervisor.
During season finales, a song is played before the closing scene in a montage showing the major characters' lives continuing in the aftermath of the narrative. The first season montage is played over 'Step by Step' by Jesse Winchester, the second 'Feel Alright' by Steve Earle, the third 'Fast Train' written by Van Morrison and performed by Solomon Burke, the fourth 'I Walk on Gilded Splinters' written by Dr. John and performed by Paul Weller, and the fifth uses an extended version of 'Way Down In The Hole' by The Blind Boys of Alabama, the same version of the song used as the opening theme for the first season.

While the songs reflect the mood of the sequences, the lyrics are usually only loosely tied to the visual shots. In the commentary track to episode 37 'Mission Accomplished', executive producer David Simon says: "I hate it when somebody purposely tries to have the lyrics match the visual. It brutalizes the visual hmm. it does sth, is that it? brutalizes ~ simplifies I guess, reduces it to an illustration, seems to tell you what you're seeing in a way to have the lyrics dead on point.Yet at the same time it can’t be totally off point. It has to glance at what you're trying to say." sure yes good, glance at.

Maximum Fun Forum :: The Wire ... favorite version of theme song?:
-It's a close one, but I'd say season one, followed very closely by two then, distantly, 4 and 3. I love the Neville brothers, but their version falls flat. It's too early to judge the new Steve Earle song for season five.
-I'm partial to the first season version, but I think that's only because I relate the song to my sheer amazement about how awesome the experience of first watching the show was.
-I'm partial to the version in Season Two (the original version). Tom Waits is great, "Frank's Wild Years" is a pretty great (if uneven) album, and it's a bit weird for me to hear other people singing his stuff. That being said, I appreciate how The Wire does it.
-Season One is the best theme song.
-I really love Season One's theme.
- I liked the fourth season's theme the most probably, but the Tom Waits version (S2) was really good, too.


The House Next Door: The Wire and the Art of the Credit Sequence :

I. Accompanied by the octogenarian gospel act The Blind Boys of Alabama, the Season One credits sequence announces that The Wire is not a kicking-down-doors-and-busting-heads kind of cop show. There's a patient and persistent atmosphere to the sequence, exemplified by its protracted running time. Instead of armories or Kevlar vests the credits display affidavits, court orders, mug shots, antiquated surveillance equipment, and people dragging on cigarettes to pass the time.
A dialogue is brokered through the alternating images of law enforcement and those seeking to undermine it. To wit: a pay phone call in which a dealer orders a re-up of drugs is followed by a shot of an officer listening in through an ear-piece. Though their heads are out of frame, the man using the pay phone is clearly facing screen left, while the man with the ear piece is facing screen right. Yet bisecting the frame in both shots is the titular wire, occupying roughly the same position within the frame.
Or consider this sequence: a hand in close-up hits the pavement, dropping a handful of vials. An indifferent foot steps on the glass and, in a match on action, we cut to the feet of a uniformed officer on mop-up duty.

II. For the second season, the targets are now predominantly middle-aged Polish-Americans and shadowy Turks with a decidedly different set of rituals and cultural norms. The credits begin with a graphic match right out of the gate, cutting between the digital frequency wave of a sound modulator and a large piece of rope securing a boat to a dock. Most of the shots in this sequence are in plain daylight. This is partly a concession to reality as stevedores don’t off-load ships at night. But the sunlit frankness of these images has a metaphoric aspect: it speaks to the impunity with which these men bend the law.
To score the Season Two credits, the producers chose Waits' original recorded version of "Way Down In The Hole." This announces that Season Two will have different themes, a different feel, and a down-and-dirty sleaziness that can only be summoned via electric guitar and a voice which, to quote Gary Graff, sounds “like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car.”
The sequence draws a clear parallel between drug abuse and alcoholism, cutting from a recycled image of a drug hand-off to a shot being poured in a dank bar. Just as the crimes of the union are considered more socially acceptable than pushing drugs, the credits introduce the idea that getting hammered at the local pub is merely the condoned flip-side of pushing off in an abandoned building. The Wire repeatedly gives us supposed authority figures puking all over themselves in public, getting behind the wheel while under the influence, and abandoning their better judgement while soused.
The “sexiness” that was distinctly absent from Season One is introduced in literal form: a come- hither look from an attractive blonde; cherry-red polish being applied to a woman’s delicate nails; a man's hand unzipping a woman's jacket in a seductive downward motion; the faces of European prostitutes staring up from confiscated passports. The Wire has never played coy about sex; but Season Two, which revolves around a cargo container full of dead prostitutes, delves into carnal matters. Look beyond the sequence's sexual imagery and you discover the overriding theme of Season Two: personal encumbrances that bring about downfall.

III. In this season, both cops and criminals angling for legitimacy butt heads with an institution (local government) and learn, in so many words, that you can’t fight City Hall. The Neville Brothers perform the theme song's third incarnation. It's a far more up-tempo rendition than the previous two, but it's also more boisterous and spiritual, employing a call and response technique that makes it seem as if the words are being sung between a church choir and its congregation.
We can see change happening all around the characters, and it is represented in the credits as well via images of blueprints, construction sites, and ground-breaking ceremonies. Yet just as prevalent is the sight of money changing hands. Real estate and development, like drug dealing, is a lucrative business that often unfolds on the wrong side of the law.
Season Three focuses on the idea of improving the community, with several creative variations on what exactly entails said community. Certainly mayoral candidate Tommy Carcetti thinks he can make Baltimore a better place, using a platform of improved crime statistics to siphon off voters from Mayor Clarence V. Royce’s strong black voting base. Season Three gives us “Hamsterdam,” a safe haven for competing corner boys to sell their wares, with the police merely serving as impartial referees. We also meet Deacon, a religious figure who genuinely wants to make a difference in the community, and starts by helping former convict Dennis “Cutty” Wise open a boxing gym/community center (this plotline is made especially poignant by the casting of Melvin Williams, ex-drug dealer and the inspiration for Avon Barksdale, in the Deacon role). Even Stringer Bell becomes an advocate of civic behavior by creating “the co-op,” a regular gathering of Baltimore’s drug barons in a hotel conference room. ...Stringer is entranced by the lucrative world of legitimate business, desperate to free himself from the same world that Avon violently clings to.

IV. The goal here is exploring how criminals are created as opposed to how we incarcerate them. Accordingly, there’s a youthful exuberance to the credits, extending from the cutting style (which is really quite playful) to the shot selection to the unsurprising choice of musical performer.
From the youthful voices (Ivan Ashford, Markel Steele, Cameron Brown, Tariq Al-Sabir, and Avery Bargasse) who sing this season's version of "Way Down in the Hole" (arranged by Doreen Vail, Maurette Brown-Clark, and J.B. Wilkins), to images of children leaning against an ice cream truck or hands playing dice, this season promises to focus on street kids who risk death or jail on West Baltimore's corners. We even see Marlo—himself only a few years removed from the kids who will make up his ever-growing army of dealers—tuck a couple of his trademark lollipops into his pocket. We see young kids, no more than seven or eight years old, emulating gang signals with one another, a shot of children watching indifferently as a school bus zips past, a wall-mounted convex mirror (used to monitor students rounding a corner) placed alongside grainy surveillance footage.
The other theme that will come into play is a continuation of one started last season about how ineffectual politicians are at solving the problems that fall under their responsibility. Opening with the now-familiar images of flickering sound waves, bundles of audio wire, and other emblems of surveillance, we cut to a white man in a suit (possibly mayoral candidate Tommy Carcetti) holding a briefcase and crossing the frame in front of a government building. We then graphic match to a large red case, which we learn early on contains an industrial-grade nail gun purchased by Marlo’s enforcer, Snoop, as part of a unique strategy to make Marlo’s dead bodies "disappear." These images are linked by the shape of the characters' carrying cases. The implication, borne out in Season Four, is that the politicians hide their failures (in this instance the troubled school system), using creative accounting and “juked” statistics to conjure the illusion of progress.
A procession of shots near the end of the credits: A local shop-keeper spins open a counter-top security window, sending through a pack of smokes. A hand (Marlo’s) spins a pair of expensive-looking designer rims. A piece of playground equipment spins anonymously at night. A child rolls a large tire around in an empty alley. Bundles of narcotics are packed alongside a spare tire in the back of a car, a piece of carpeting pulled up to conceal them. And then a similar cut of fabric, this time a body bag being carried from an abandoned row house. The same motions are repeated throughout and the eye is unavoidably drawn to how these shots flow seamlessly into one another.

-MZS: Andrew, my favorite part of this piece is the discussion of the Season Four credits, where you analyze the cutting patterns that link circular imagery.These people, these institutions, this city, should be moving forward, yet too often they're content to go round and round.

-KLTHORSON said... As the Producer in charge of post-production, the title sequence falls under my bailiwick (happily). I am very interested in the last photo-image of your essay: a trail of blood, shaped like an upside down wishbone, flickering in the rotation of the squad car lights. I wonder if you are aware that this piece of 35 millimeter is the first image of the first episode of The Wire. It is The Wire's first visual step and a moment that constantly brings the series full circle wherever you are in the story. This is a favorite image. It match cuts well to other wire-like silhouettes. It is concrete-real yet artistic-abstract. Electrified by a pulsing light, this shot, an emblem of death, is very much alive. It is a very useful little picture when you only have 90 seconds to tell a story.
Sarah Boxer in her New York Times article (April 22, 2000) about opening credits quotes design authority and writer Ken Coupland: "The first few minutes of a film can be compared to the curious stage of consciousness that makes the transition between wakefulness and sleep." hm.
When I see the blood shot I jump back five years to Gerri Peroni in the cutting room on the pilot episode of The Wire. She chose to lead us into the episode with this powerful image. She keeps the flow of the image alive by blending to the tracking shot of the street... We are moving towards Mcnulty on the stoop. This makes a path to the heart of the teaser, the tale of Snot Boogie and the American way. The transition from teaser to titles is true to a dream including that restless scant second where you almost wake up as the action cuts swiftly from McNulty's gaze to Snot Boogie unblinking.

-Karen Thorson has it going on, huh? She starts thinking about the credits as soon as the first dailies come in and she makes the most out of that minute-thirty every season.
Just when we start to believe that we're thinking about everything too much, we read something like that and get juiced all over again.-- David Simon