‘The Sopranos’ Theme Writer Explains Why He’s Never Watched The Show

The theme song of a TV show often sets the tone of the program for episodes and seasons to come, hooking viewers in the process. In the case of The Sopranos, British band Alabama 3’s “Woke Up This Morning” graces the title sequence featured in every episode. However, in the 25 years since the hit HBO mob drama debuted, the theme song has yet to hook one particular viewer — the song’s co-writer Rob Spragg, who goes by the name Larry Love.

Despite the series’ critical acclaim, Love, the band’s frontman and co-founder who is credited as a co-writer on the song, revealed to BBC News that he has yet to watch an episode, confessing that he’s “been too scared to watch it,” per HuffPost.

“Not because of anything in the show itself, more due to the fact I hate listening to my own records,” he clarified. “I’m too much of a perfectionist and always end up thinking, ‘Oh, I should have done that part differently.'”

Similar to how viewers see James Gandolfini‘s Tony Soprano in the opening credits sequence, Love told the outlet that showrunner David Chase “was driving along the New Jersey turnpike when [the song] came on his car radio.”

“He thought the lyrics, ‘Woke up this morning, got yourself a gun / Mamma always said you’d be the chosen one,’ were perfect for the dynamic between Tony Soprano and his mother,” he noted, referring to Nancy Marchand‘s Livia Soprano.

As BBC reports, the song is based on a real-life victim of domestic abuse. That victim, Sara Thornton, had stabbed her abusive husband, who was also an alcoholic, to death in 1989, per The Independent. According to the outlet, she had been convicted of murder at first and sentenced to life in prison, but was eventually retried, and her conviction was reduced to manslaughter.

“She stabbed him to death,” Love said in a 2019 interview. “After years of abuse, she just had enough. So she woke up one morning and decided to go and get herself a knife. That would have been the lyric, but it didn’t quite sound right, so we changed it to gun. The rest is history.”

While speaking with BBC News, Love admitted that with respect to the 1997 song, they “took a bit of a gamble going up with the whole ‘Country and Western-meets-techno’ vibe, especially during the age of Britpop.”

“But it worked and we’re still here and of that I’m very proud,” he added.

Jake Black, who co-wrote “Woke Up This Morning” and co-founded the band with Love, died in May 2019, per The Guardian.

While fans are still marveling at the fact that it’s been 25 years of The Sopranos, they were also stunned to learn that Robert Iler, the actor who began starring as Tony’s son AJ at the age of 12, was 38 at the start of 2024, which was how old Gandolfini was when the show debuted. According to IMDb, Iler turned 39 on March 2.

The Sopranos is streaming on Max.