The music of UFO was, naturally, composed by Barry Gray - bar Invasion: UFO's opening titles 'The Dawn of an Era' by Francis Monkman plus the destruction of the underwater dome for Reflections In The Water ("Full Alert" by John Scott), and the five Italian compilation movies in fact used tracks from the James Bond films From Russia with Love and Thunderball. And what an opening theme Gray composed! Having scored for all of Anderson's shows from The Adventures of Twizzle right up to Space: 1999, except The Protectors, the main two elements of the theme were often split and used separately, the melody orchestrated and re-orchestrated into a myriad of different styles, from airy and light to heavily dramatic. The backbeat (matching the rhythm of the human heartbeat) was often used on its own, particularly during the SHADO Interceptor launch sequences, adding a sense of danger and urgency to the scenes.
Editing the music by George Randall, the score also used the Hammond organ as a lead instrument for many of the cues Gray wrote for the series. His favourite electronic instrument (the ondes Martenot) was used for scenes particularly cues for scenes set in outer space. Moving to Guernsey in 1970 where he composed the score for the series. In 1971, New World Music (UK) released sheet music for the UFO title theme. Gray always considered the opening soundtrack to be one of his favourite works, including two Doppelganger (aka Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun) tracks. One of which "Sleeping Astronauts" appeared in the episode Close Up, whilst the spooky track of "Crashlanding and Rescue" was used as the end titles recorded March 1969, with a track from the episode of Supercar, Space For Mitch. Lots of tracks from earlier Anderson shows were re-used as the only episodes scored were Identified, Exposed, Survival, Conflict, A Question Of Priorities, The Square Triangle, Ordeal, ESP, Confetti Check A-Ok, Mindbender and The Long Sleep.
Notable episodes re-scoring tracks from the SUPERMARIONATION shows include Flight Path, The Sound Of Silence, The Psycobombs, Reflections In The Water, and Timelash. As Gerry Anderson remembers, "I had a great admiration for Barry Gray and we got on famously, but at times he could also be very irritating. He was a highly intelligent person who was steeped in music and a great technician. He deserved ten times the respect that he received. There were occasions, though, when I could not get things across to him and I don't know to this day if he was just playing daft and it was his way of resisting what I wanted him to do". Like earlier Anderson shows, tracks from UFO were reused for Gray's next Anderson series he composed for, Space: 1999. A track from ESP can be heard in the episode Another Time Another Place when the two Helena's meet.
The Thunderbirds 2086 series (the dubbed Japanese series Technovoyager re-dubbed Thunderbirds 2086 to ITC Entertainment to not be a continuation of the original Thunderbirds, but follows a similar concept to the original Gerry Anderson series) re-scored tracks from the earlier Anderson shows; Space: 1999, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 and UFO. Several tracks from the episode Survival and The Square Triangle can be heard in numerous episodes, but the most notable cue of music re-scored from UFO is in the episode Cloudburst as the tsunami worsens in the episode where a track The Square Triangle is reused. Overall, Barry Gray's music for UFO is defiantly one of his best works, and its most recent release of the soundtrack was on 13th September 2019 from Silva Screen records. With its funky theme and memorable soundtracks, it is quite hard to imagine UFO or any of the Anderson shows Gray composed for, to sound any different.
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UFO: The Vault
Non-FictionGerry Anderson's UFO was the first big budget British live-action television series of a secret government organisation named SHADO (Supreme Headqauters Alien Defence Organisation) combat a dying alien race who have come to Earth in order to survive...
