Why The "Cheers" Theme Song Resonates With Us More Than Ever
A celebration of the weak ties that connect us to one another.
“…Where everybody knows your name…
….And they’re always glad you came…”
Has there ever been a more apt description of the perfect local watering hole? I don’t believe so.
The Cheers theme song — officially titled, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” — began as another song written by songwriting duo Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo for a Broadway musical called Preppies. The song, “People Like Us,” made its way to TV producers Glen and Les Charles, who were looking for the perfect theme song for their new NBC sitcom set in a local bar in Boston, Massachusetts. Like most great songs, the lyrics went through a few revisions before it reached its final form, but Portnoy and Angelo’s work eventually paid off; both TV Guide and a Rolling Stone magazine reader’s poll selected “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” as the greatest television theme of all time. Cheers, for its part, went on to run for 275 episodes over a span of eleven seasons, and gifted us our most famous TV mailman (tied with Newman from Seinfeld) in Cliff Clavin.
The song is classic soft rock: the opening piano figure, the subtle synth pads, Portnoy’s multitrack vocal and the soprano sax stand out as the defining features that evoke the early ‘80s, in all their moussed glory. It is the aforementioned lyric at the opening of the refrain, however, that truly transcends time. In just 10 words, Portnoy and Angelo captured the yearning we have for the familiar and plainly spelled it out in one catchy, rhyming couplet.
I can vaguely recall sitting on the couch and watching Cheers with my parents as a kid; its humor and subject matter went far over my head, so it didn’t resonate with me at the time. The idea that adults would go to a designated place just to talk to other adults for fun seemed incredibly farfetched to me, a child that put a premium on new toys, new activities, and new episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Similarly, although I understood the point of its theme song, I couldn’t grasp the weight of it. “Where everybody knows your name” sounded a lot like school, and that was the last place I wanted to go.
It was only in getting older and moving to New York City that Portnoy and Angelo’s lyrics began to ring true. I was a newcomer in an unforgiving city, attempting to carve out a career for myself as a musician while being saddled with the dual burdens of student loan and high interest credit card debt. In the city, my story was common to the point of cliche; I was the proverbial starving artist. Stopping into the bar at the end of the road by my apartment always provided me with a bit of encouragement, however — not because of the alcohol, as I wasn’t much of a drinker, but because of the people. In there, I was Scott, the guy that does the piano mashups. I didn’t know the regulars all that well, and they didn’t really know me, but it didn’t matter much. After a long day of trekking to and from subway stops in the blistering cold, it was always good to see their faces.
A great neighborhood bar allows native residents to keep their traditions alive, while still allowing newcomers to weave themselves into the fabric of the community. For those that are far from home, the regulars offer a warm, familiar respite far from the fluorescent lights of a cold, corporate work environment. For those born and raised nearby, welcoming newcomers into the fold allows for cultural exchange and enrichment. It is truly a win / win situation. In fact, if it weren’t for the razor-thin profit margins and bureaucratic confusion that comes with opening such an establishment, it might even be a win / win / win — that last “win” being a well-deserved one for the owner of such a bar.
It took the recent pandemic for the ever-important neighborhood pub to truly get the recognition it deserved, however. As we vacated public places and huddled online — working remotely; attending disastrously ineffective “Zoom School” classes; streaming Netflix series that seemed to manifest spontaneously out of social media algorithms — we felt in ourselves a deep sense of loss that was, at first, quite difficult to pinpoint. We still saw our family and the friends closest to us, we still continued working and raising children…but that vague, gaping hole remained, nonetheless. Finally, it hit us: there was something about losing touch with the folks that we hardly knew — the barista at the local coffeeshop that always knew our order, the co-worker over in accounting that always wore the funny ties and cracked jokes in a oft-misguided attempt to boost morale, the crinkly old man at the bar that always removed his Stetson when he came in and carried photos of his grandkids to show us — that made us lose our sense of belonging.
As it turns out, our so-called “weak ties” are the glue that allows us to feel connected to a larger community outside of our close friends and family. Our interactions with our weak ties are rarely more than superficial — a friendly smile or some casual riffing about the weather, perhaps — but they offer us some reassurance that we have some friendly fellow travelers as we make our way through the world. This reassurance is not only essential for the health of our communities at large, but for the health of our close friendships and romantic partnerships, as well. Different relationships and categories of friendship exist to fulfill different needs, and when we try to consolidate multiple social roles into just one person, the burden is often too heavy for them to bear.
In the neighborhood bar we have the purest instance of weak ties: a room full of those fellow travelers, here not for a long time, but for a good time. Folks that remember us, even if they’ve never seen us illuminated by daylight. Folks dealing with problems that may be different from our own, but of equal weight, nonetheless. We know their names and faces, and sometimes very little else — but that’s all we need. We feel a kinship with them, and they, with us, as we chatter aimlessly and order rounds and watch the sports highlights in tacit affirmation of one another.
There are some that believe that our future lies online; that our analog world has already fused with the digital, and that our next step lies in further exploring this new realm of the metaverse. They tend to downplay the importance of in-person anything — school, work, concerts — believing that, at some level of technological advancement, a simulated reality will be indistinguishable from the real thing. I don’t believe any of this to be true. I certainly don’t wish it to be true, either.
Don’t get me wrong; I am extraordinarily grateful that modern technology allows us to see family members thousands of miles away, to connect and share ideas across oceans and deserts, and to connect with others, even in our most isolated moments. I’ve taken advantage of this to great effect as both a musician and a human being. But modern technology is no substitute for the real thing, and we shouldn’t pretend that any amount of technological doubling will ever get us to a time where it is.
I don’t want to live in the world where our weak ties exist only as online avatars; where the messiness of the outside world is smoothed over with a 3D modeled perfection; where its denizen live in peaceful isolation, pacified by an endless drip of digital Soma. I want to live in the world where our experiences are imperfect but visceral; where we wear our emotions on our face, instead of on our status updates; where our weak ties are at a distance yet still tangible. A world where we lift up our fellow travelers merely by coexisting in the same place; that mythical place we long for, where everybody knows your name.
Glen and Les Charles got it right when they gave Portnoy and Angelo’s song such a prominent feature for all eleven seasons of Cheers. Perhaps they had an inkling of what was to come. Perhaps they just understood how to make great television, having previously produced The Bob Newhart Show and Taxi. Either way, its lyrics will be indelibly etched in our collective consciousness forever:
Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go…
…Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.
…
“NORM!”
-SB
2/6/22 - I enjoyed reading all your emails on last week’s piece — I received well over a hundred of them, and many of them made some extremely insightful observations. One — a famous animator, no less — pointed out that animators can reap all the benefits of being world famous without being personally recognized all of the time. Another reader disagreed with my thesis that celebrity culture had died by pointing out that both our love for and dislike of celebrities were just two sides of the same coin — one that won’t be going out of circulation anytime soon. Others offered some astute additional commentary; there was certainly an added layer of irony in hearing celebrities suggest that we “imagine no possessions…” —- an irony that I missed entirely.
Most of all, I received a surprising amount of kudos for disabling the comment section, in favor of receiving your comments by email. I’ve been thinking of why this return to an archaic approach to reader feedback feels so refreshing, and I think I may have put my finger on it. A new piece on comment sections may be in the works…
Lastly — in both keeping with the theme of this week’s piece and contradicting it entirely — I want to invite anyone new here to our very own “neighborhood bar” that I host on my YouTube channel. The generally-once-a-week live stream is called, “Piano Request LIVE!” and — as the title suggests — centers around me playing your song requests live. Yes— it is a “virtual” experience that started during the pandemic, but it’s turned into such an awesome community of fun, kind-hearted people that I’ve continued it indefinitely. It’s the reason why YouTube is the only social media channel I’ve kept going, and even if it’s no substitute for a real life, in-person experience, I’m confident that it’s the next best thing: a place where “everybody knows your screen name.”
As always, feel free to write me by replying directly to this email. Word of mouth is the only marketing I do for this, so forward this email to the folks that you think might enjoy it, as well!