Delia and the Doctor

Radiophonic Workshop

Saturday, November 23, 1963

Do you know the TV show “Dr. Who”? It first aired on BBC in Nov 1963. The Dr Who theme music was written in 1963 for piano/orchestra by Ron Grainer. A young woman called Delia Derbyshire in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was given the score and recorded the spacey version we know from 50+ years of the long-running BBC classic. She used early synthesizers and tape machines running backwards. When Ron Grainer heard it he asked “Did I write that?” and was so blown away that he asked the Performing Rights Society to add Delia to the writing credits. They refused!

One of my favorite EDM tracks is a version of this theme by Orbital - called “Doctor?” - they recreated what Delia had done, using modern synthesizers, and added a cool drum track. It was released in 2001, the year Delia died. Incredible that a piece of music from 1963 sounded as amazing as a dance track 40-something years later. 

Orbital is one of my favorite modern EDM bands. The Hartnoll brothers started out in 1989 after Paul put a demo track together in a few spare minutes (while waiting for a mate to go to the pub) and asked a DJ friend for feedback. It was released as “Chime”, one of their major dance anthems. They hit the big time in 1994 when they were the first real EDM act at the Glastonbury Festival, which was televised on UK’s Channel 4. Pretty amazing to knock up a track in a few minutes and still be playing it as your encore 30-odd years later. 

But their track Doctor? is a great tribute to Delia and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.