Theme Song and Opening Sequence
The theme song and opening sequence set the premise of the show. Will Smith is a street-smart teenager, born and raised in West Philadelphia, who was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Bel Air, Los Angeles after getting in a fight.
The theme song was written and performed by Smith, as "The Fresh Prince". The music was composed by Quincy Jones, who is credited with Smith at the end of each episode. The music often used to bridge scenes together during the show is based on a similar chord structure. The full version of the theme song was used unedited on some early episodes. The full-length version, which is 2:52", was included on Will Smith's Greatest Hits album and attributed to himself only. A 3:23" version was released in the Netherlands in 1992, and reached #3 on the charts.
For the first few episodes of the show stanzas one to three and stanzas six and seven were used. Beginning with Episode #4 (titled "Not With My Pig, You Don't"), only the first two and the last two stanzas of the song were used. The change to the theme song allowed for longer episodes to be created.
Seasons 1, 5, and 6 featured an instrumental version of the theme and still photographs from the episode for the closing credits. In Seasons 2, 3, and 4, the music and stills were dropped and closing credits would almost always appear over bloopers and outtakes from the episode.
Read more about this topic: The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air
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—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
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—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography.... For autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and what makes up the continuous flow of life. Here, I am talking of a space, of moments and discontinuities. For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form—it may be called fleeting or eternal—is in neither case the stuff that life is made of.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)