Jimmy Hart reflects on the many theme songs he's made throughout the years and some of them ending up in the care of Ted Turner’s organizations.
Jimmy Hart is one of the most famous professional wrestling theme composers in history. He has had a hand in making the theme songs for Shawn Michaels, The Honky Tonk Man, Hulk Hogan, and more.
Speaking with Sean Ross Sapp ahead of WrestleMania 38, Jimmy reflected on making theme songs for the likes of Dusty Rhodes, Hulk Hogan’s WCW theme song, and the nWo Wolfpac theme song.
"You know what? Dusty Rhodes wanted a theme that we did for him, which we made it work,” he recalled. “Scott Hall and Kevin Nash wanted a new theme song, so me and my partner wrote the Wolfpac song. We had to do a new one for Hulk ‘cause he couldn’t use Real American. So we did one that we did for him, American Made. So it turned out great.”
As some of these theme songs were made for WCW, Jimmy says he finds it strange that some of them were never released. Jimmy says that there are over 100 songs just waiting for somebody to use them because when WWE bought w.w. they didn't get the rights to all of the music.
"Well, you know what’s really strange? It turned out great, but they still got all of our songs down there with their publishing company,” said Jimmy. “They never released anything. So there’s a hundred and something songs just sitting down there waiting for somebody to use them. That was owned by Turner. WCW has them, but when Vince bought all the tapes up here in WWE, they didn’t get the rights to the music.
“They’re all individual tracks that, I guess, if anybody wanted to use them, if Turner and them even have a publishing company,” Jimmy continued. “Who knows what they have down there?”
Jimmy Hart would later say while speaking to Sean Ross Sapp prior to SummerSlam 2022 that he's proud of the number of listens that some of his songs have accumulated on Spotify.
I was just looking at Spotify the other day. Shawn Michaels’ song that we wrote for him years ago has 10,200,000 hits. A lot of people say, ‘If Jimmy Hart’s lips are moving, he’s lying,’ but I’m telling you the truth! Check it out. Two million hits off the Road Warriors song we wrote and the Hart Foundation a little over two million. That’s on Spotify. But they have a whole big catalog, like a hundred-and-something song over there. I think when WWE purchased the company from WCW, they never picked up the songs on it. So they’re just sitting there getting dust on them. So whoever’s listening, check them out.
Talking about some of the theme songs that are on the Shelf, Jimmy Hart noted that it's for competitors such as Raven, Perry Saturn, and Diamond Dallas Page. All three of those individuals had theme songs that closely resembled licensed music that was on the radio. Raven and DDP had theme songs closely resembling Nirvana songs. Raven having a song that sounded close to “Come As You Are” and Page’s theme song resembled “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” WCW was even nearly sued by Dave Grohl because of the theme song
"It was all for the wrestlers back then. For Raven, Saturn, Diamond Dallas Page, the Nitro Girl’s theme. A lot of them are just sitting there that we’ve actually played over the TV. So when they didn’t pick them up when they bought the company, they’re just sitting there in the domain. So hopefully someone looks into it and puts them out."
As for today's theme songs, Jimmy says he is a fan of today's music in wrestling, saying that he loves it.
“I love it. I think whoever’s doing all of it, whether it’s the artists that are on the radio now, whoever, it’s all great. I love it, the music. I really do.”
Some of Jimmy's music from WCW is also available on Spotify as part of an album release, including the Wolfpac theme song. You can check out the full album here.
