It all started with a Big Bang…but in the case of The Big Bang Theory theme song, it actually all started with a last minute panic and a five minute shower.

Don’t the best stories always begin that way?!

Zoom forward 12 years later, and the Barenaked Ladies may have set the record for the most lucrative five minutes ever created, still earning royalties to this day for the song’s use.

(Which, considering it’s always on repeats somewhere in the world, is a tidy little earner.)


Created by the band whose back catalogue includes classics One Week and Falling For The First Time, the iconic theme has found its place in sitcom legend, on par with Friends’ I’ll Be There For You from The Rembrandts.



In a stroke of genius that even Sheldon Cooper himself would be proud of, The Big Bang Theory (the song) is an infectious earworm that sticks in your head for hours after you hear it.

We bet you can hear it in your head now, right?…Knew it. So what goes on behind creating a show like this?

Speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk, Barenaked Ladies’ frontman Ed Robertson reveals that the back story to the song’s creation is almost as hilarious as the show itself.

Here are just some of the key secrets behind the song’s success that you might not be aware of, as told by the person who brought it all together in the first place.

The band almost couldn’t be bothered to make it

‘I actually had a lot of disappointments in writing for songs on television, like songs for some big features that never saw the light of day,’ Ed said.

‘The request came on for Big Bang Theory and I was a little bit jaded about the whole project, and so I really didn’t bother to do it. My manager was nagging me, going “this would be a good idea” but I was like “eurgh, whatever”. I totally ignored the entire thing until the morning I was supposed to get on a conference call with Chuck and Bill and present the song…which I had not written.

‘I was going to get on the call and just go “hey guys, really appreciate the ask, but I’ve just been too busy with touring and I haven’t been able to do this, so good luck.”’

Thankfully, Ed’s wife Natalie was a bit more clued in to what he was potentially getting involved in, and gave him a push in the right direction.

Barenaked Ladies have been peforming together for 31 years (Picture: Matt Barnes)

‘I mentioned to my wife that I had a conference call with this song that I hadn’t been able to write, and she asked who the call was with. I told her it Chuck Lorre, and she was like “you should Google him”. So I did and was like “oh, s***, this might be real.”

‘This is what had happened before, I thought I was being asked to write the theme song for a certain project and then I was suddenly competing against 20 other writers, and they don’t actually want interesting, introspective pop songs about the journey of the main character, they just want a hit song they can slap in a movie.



‘So I called my manager, and he was like “no, I think they only asked you. They want you guys to write this thing.”’

‘[Tyler] told me, “Alright, I’ll do it, but this better be the next f**king Seinfeld!”….I still bug him about that!’

But it wasn’t just Ed that struggled with the idea of agreeing to take part of the song, with the band scattered between the States and their native of Canada, meaning a lot of rallying had to come in to play in order to get them all together.

‘There was a little hesitance from the band about doing a theme song for a television show, and I actually was having trouble talking Tyler [Stewart], our drummer, into coming in for the session,’ he said.

‘I was like, “Ty, the people are really nice, I wrote this song, it’ll be just a nice collaboration. Just come and play for 30 seconds. Do me a favour, just come in and do it.”

‘He told me, “Alright, I’ll do it, but this better be the next f**king Seinfeld!”,’ the star laughed. ‘I still bug him about that.’

The show got bigger than anyone imagined (Picture: CBS)

The Big Bang Theory theme was written in the shower

For someone who had been fighting against writing the song at all, Ed managed to get himself together quite quickly…and managed to get the track to completion in the space of a few hours.

‘I got in the shower and the whole idea came to me in the course of a five minute shower,’ he told us. ‘I actually called my wife in and said “Can you write this down?!?” and dictated the first verse to her.

‘I got out of the shower, recorded it in my bathing suit, recorded it into my laptop using no outdoor gear, just a built-in mic in my laptop, and emailed it.’


Thankfully the whole thing worked out for the best, and with minimal changes, the band had themselves a hit.

‘I got on a call and Chuck, who’s a musician himself, and he said: “you know what happens at end and you sing “it all started with a Big Bang” and you repeat that line? Can you lose that and just do once as final line?

‘I said yeah, sure. And he went “Great, we love it, we’re done!”’

If only everything was that simple!

Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady (far left and far right) had chosen the band specifically for the song (Picture: Getty/NBC)

The band became pals with the Big Bang Theory cast

‘The relationship between the show and the cast was really great along the run of the show,’ Ed said, revealing that he first met the cast on a talk show in Canada just as the series was launching.

Thankfully it was something that would keep on growing over the years as the success of the series meant the band became more associated with the show to the public.

‘When they taped the 100th episode of the show they brought us down and we performed to the audience,’ he revealed. ‘We did the comic-con panel with them, they would come out to shows and they would fly us out to premieres in LA.

‘When the finale aired, we all did Colbert in New York. It’s been a great association with the cast over the years.’

The gang’s poignant final moments was inspired by the band’s original demo (Picture: Getty/NBC)

The finale acoustic version was based on the original demo

In the final moments of the last ever episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon, Leonard and the gang return to their beloved apartment and eat Chinese food together, like nothing had changed.


As the camera zooms out on the gang forever, an acoustic version of the theme song plays us all out – and leaving us all in tears.

But according to Ed, we might never have got that moment as originally, Bill and Chuck wanted the acoustic demo he recorded to be the main running track for the title sequence.

He told us: ‘They were like, “it’s so scrappy and raw, and it’s just got a great feel”. I was like, “guys, no please let me get a high energy version with the band recorded.”

It’s eclipsed every record and hit I’ve ever had, and it was such a joy to write and perform.

‘They said OK, we’ll hear it and if you can beat this, we can use the full band version but we really like the acoustic version.’

While the full band version we’ve come to know and love eventually won out, Chuck still had the original version in his head, and it came in handy more than a decade later.

‘At the end of the run, Chuck called me and said: “Hey, what about that acoustic version? Can you give us a melancholy delivery with an acoustic guitar?” So I went in the studio and did that, emailed it to Chuck and said “We love it, I’ve just written the last scene. We’re ending it with the acoustic version,”‘ Ed said.

The Barenaked Ladies are now heading out on tour (Picture: Harmony Gerber/Getty Images)

‘It was such a beautiful book end to the whole story. Super emotional,’ he continued. ‘I cried freely when I watched it!

‘It’s been such a big chapter in my life, you know? That song that was written in a matter of minutes, it’s eclipsed every record and hit I’ve ever had, and it was such a joy to write and perform.

‘It’s a hit in the live show. It’s just meant a ton to me and the band. It was such a great association and it’s something that I’m super proud of.’

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What’s next for the Barenaked Ladies?

Formed in 1988 in Ontario, Canada, the band are still going strong, and are heading over on a UK tour in April 2020 which ends at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London.

‘We’re really looking forward to coming to the UK, particularly the Royal Albert Hall. We haven’t played there since 2002, I think,’ Ed said.

‘We’re in the middle of making a record right now, I’m not sure if it’ll be out by the time we get to the UK, but we hope to have it under our belts at least so we can play some new songs.’

He continued: ‘We love going to the UK. We tell everybody who asks that the greatest audiences in the world is the UK, I think because of the long history of festival culture there.’

The Big Bang Theory is available to stream on Netflix and airs on E4 in the UK.

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