The orchestral piece right after Obama's speech, what was it?

November 4, 2008 9:22 PM

The orchestral piece right after Obama's acceptance speech while he was still on stage waving to the crowd, what was it? If it helps, I was watching CNN in case it was music they were playing and wasn't actually being played in the park.
posted by Brian Puccio to media & arts (9 comments total)

Sounded like specially composed music to me. Once the dust settles I'm sure you could just call the campaign and they'd tell you.
posted by unSane at 9:57 PM on November 4, 2008

According to The New York Times at 12:54 AM EST, it's The Patriot, composed by John Williams.
posted by k8lin at 10:24 PM on November 4, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Sorry, the NYT moved the link. It's now here: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/live-blogging-election-night; scroll down until you see Name That Tune, right under the Wrapup section.
posted by k8lin at 11:56 PM on November 4, 2008

So that would be this then?
posted by rongorongo at 3:45 AM on November 5, 2008

I don't think that's completely right. The first part of it was "Titan's Spirit" from the Remember the Titans soundtrack. It's the same song they played after he accepted the Democratic nomination in Denver.

It only played the first part of it, though, before it cut out and picked up with a different tune -- most likely because the full song (which they played in Denver uninterrupted) had some pretty foreboding parts to it.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:21 AM on November 5, 2008

It's actually not The Patriot.

It is, in fact, the theme to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which I caught on my second guess (this is sort of a hobby for me... yes, I am a geek). I believe it is the Boston Pops' rendition of it, which is not identical to what's there on YT - it's more of an overture.

I found it hilarious that they chose it. :)

thanks for the mecha heads-up, danostuporstar!
posted by po at 8:24 PM on November 5, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

>It is, in fact, the theme to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

I love that - a kind of hidden joke from whichever soundtrack geek was asked to choose the music to whichever soundtrack geeks are interested enough to be reading this thread.
posted by rongorongo at 2:32 PM on November 6, 2008

Actually, I amend my answer - I wasn't completely correct. Immediately following the speech (at 19:30 in this video), what's played is the theme to Remember the Titans, a repeat of what was used for his DNC acceptance speech. It plays for only about a minute, though. At 19:39 it fades out, to be replaced by the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves cue. It's all a bit garbled, due to the echoing and interference of the cheering, but if you listen closely, it's definitely recognizable. Then at 23:12, it returns, jumping to the very beginning of Remember the Titans. Once again, 24:29, we go back to Robin Hood, which continues until 26:54.

Sorry about that. I knew the RTT theme was used later, but hadn't realized they'd inserted a 1-minute section of it before the Robin Hood cue.
posted by po at 1:05 AM on November 8, 2008

Fantastic, thanks!
posted by Brian Puccio at 8:34 PM on November 9, 2008