You helped me, Vonda! Ally theme was one of my faves

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. If you are over the age of 40, I suspect you’ve launched into the rest of the Cheers theme tune right about now.

I used to love singing it when it came on the telly in the ’80s. In fact it’s in my top five singalong TV theme tunes, along with: The Golden Girls (Thank you for being a frieeeend... Travel down the road and back again...), Fame (I’d wear leg warmers and jump off the couch at the end credits), Friends (the minute the jangly guitar starts, sunbeams stream out of my eyes) and Vonda Shepard’s Ally McBeal anthem Searchin’ My Soul never fails to take me back to carefree times. Cheesy? Maybe. But I can make allowances when it comes to pure, unadulterated nostalgia.

It was interesting to hear the background to the Ally McBeal song when we caught up with Shepard this week, during her UK tour celebrating the show’s 25th anniversary.

She had recorded the song years before her big break, when the creator of Ally McBeal offered her a role after hearing her sing in a club. As well as performing at the end of each episode she went on to serve as the smash-hit show’s music producer.

On pages 6&7 she describes how she was catapulted from playing to a handful of people in local clubs to playing to thousands at festivals around the world and working with the likes of Sting, Jon Bon Jovi and Gladys Knight. She tells us:“After years and years of working so hard Ally blew open the doors for me to tour all over the world, which was a real gift.”

I’ll drink to that...Cheers!