The Fascinating Story of How the Electric Music Pioneer Delia Derbyshire Created the Original Doctor Who Theme (1963)

"We've focused a fair bit here on the work of Delia Der­byshire, pio­neer­ing elec­tron­ic com­pos­er of the mid-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry- fea­tur­ing two doc­u­men­taries on her and dis­cussing her role in almost cre­at­ing an elec­tron­ic back­ing track for Paul McCartney's "Yes­ter­day." There's good rea­son to devote so much atten­tion to her: Derbyshire's work with the BBC's Radio­phon­ic Work­shop laid the bedrock for a good deal of the sound design we hear on TV and radio today. And, as we point­ed out pre­vi­ous­ly, her elec­tron­ic music, record­ed under her own name and with the band White Noise, influ­enced "most every cur­rent leg­end in the business-from Aphex Twin and the Chem­i­cal Broth­ers to Paul Hart­noll of Orbital.""

"Yet for all her influ­ence among dance music com­posers and sound effects wiz­ards, Der­byshire and her music remain pret­ty obscure-that is except for one com­po­si­tion, instant­ly rec­og­niz­able as the orig­i­nal theme to the BBC's sci-fi hit Doc­tor Who (hear it at the top), "the best-known work of a rag­tag group of tech­ni­cians," writes The Atlantic, "who unwit­ting­ly helped shape the course of 20th-cen­tu­ry music." Writ­ten by com­pos­er Ron Grain­er, the song was actu­al­ly brought into being by the Radio­phon­ic Work­shop, and by Der­byshire espe­cial­ly. The sto­ry of the Doc­tor Who theme's cre­ation is almost as inter­est­ing as the tune itself, with its "swoop­ing, hiss­ing and puls­ing" that "man­ages to be at once haunt­ing, goofy and ethe­re­al.""

Delia Derbyshire pioneered mid-twentieth-century electronic composition and shaped modern sound design through her work at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Her recordings under her own name and with White Noise influenced prominent electronic and dance musicians including Aphex Twin, the Chemical Brothers, and Paul Hartnoll of Orbital. Derbyshire remains relatively obscure except for her definitive contribution to the original Doctor Who theme, which combined swooping, hissing, and pulsing sounds. The Doctor Who theme was written by Ron Grainer but realized and produced by the Radiophonic Workshop with Derbyshire playing a central role. Documentaries and historical notes highlight her near-collaboration on other mainstream tracks.

Read at Open Culture