53. ITV Tour de France Theme

Sometimes music is functional, it has a physical effect on you that changes you somehow, that leaves you different to the way it found you. Go for a run listening to a podcast, as I sometimes do, and it’s an efficient use of time, but go for a run listening to music and it will be different, faster, better maybe. Whenever I hear this song it perks me up, makes me pay attention to what’s about to happen, because I’ve been listening to it for so many years, for 3 weeks at a time and then nothing more for a year, so when I hear it I know I’m going to be interested in what comes next.

I could have gone with the old Channel 4 theme (which I love is now used as the theme for Mitch Docker’s podcast *cycling geek alert*) and pulled out my old La Vie Claire shirt, or gone with Kraftwerk for some hipster cred, but frankly neither of them affect me as much as the ITV4 theme does. Even now, just playing the 30 seconds of it made me want to see Gary Imlach open the show with some sarcastic comment before seeing the gorgeous landscape of France roll past in HD while almost 200 men go through complete agony for my entertainment.

Don’t look at me like that: it’s what they want to do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5Bl8ViWp6k