Back to the Future Score Videos

Our kids watched the Back to the Future trilogy over the summer, giving me a chance to revisit the films. They’re wonderful, of course.

It’s funny—when Marty all of a sudden hated to be called chicken in the second film, the kids were like, “Huh? Where’d that come from?” Well, kids, they needed what’s called a “character arc”...

Alan Silvestri’s scores, oh my God! To think that’s what movie music used to sound like.

Here are five videos about the soundtracks I came across, and made a note to blog about them one day—and that day is today!

Alan Silvestri on writing the theme, courtesy Film Music Media:

A vintage piece, with Alan conducting the orchestra:

An analysis by Tim Rodier at Omni Music Publishing of the octatonic scale and how Silvestri used it:

By the way, Omni published the score as a book, though it’s presently out of stock.

A score reduction (synched to picture) of the climactic “Clocktower” music:

And a different analysis of the score, courtesy the Jigowatts YouTube channel:

Enjoy!