'Only Fools and Horses' had TWO theme tunes?!

This article by Stuart Jeffries on the musical return of ‘Only Fools and Horses’ reminded me of the show’s brilliant closing theme tune - which on reflection could count as some quality early UK rap - “We’ve got some half-price cracked ice, And miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, Deep freeze, And David Bowie LPs… “

But that’s the closing theme, not the main one. Confused? Most folk when asked to sing the ‘Only Fools’ theme will be sure they’re doing the ONLY one - until you counter with the other. (I’m a real hoot at parties).

Actually, If you want to be fussy about it - there were THREE theme tunes. John Sullivan had already written his own two (further below) but when the show launched in 1981 the BBC chose to go with this one by Ronnie Hazlehurst. To be fair, Ronnie had form - he’d written the themes to ‘The Last of the Summer Wine’, ‘Yes Minister’, and ‘Are You Being Served?’, but he didn’t quite strike gold here -

When the BBC kept getting questions about the show’s weird title it was a perfect opportunity for John to push his own theme-tune again as it had a built in explanation (“Why do only fools and horses work…”). John originally wanted Chas and Dave to record it but was persuaded to give it a go himself -

And here’s the closing credits, also written and performed by John Sullivan (though it really does sound like Nicholas Lyndhurst aka Rodney aka Dave)

Is Hooky Street a real place? Nah ‘hooky’ is just slang for dodgy and ‘Trevor Francis tracksuits’ is a reference to a famous 70s and 80s footballer who was the first £1 million signing in the UK (from Birmingham FC to Notts Forrest) God bless Google.

I’m on Twitter @theroryjohn