Jim Johnston‘s final bow with WWE was rooted in personal meaning.
Johnston, the composer of many legendary WWE theme songs, spoke with Chris Van Vliet and talked about his career as a songwriter for WWE. Johnston was released from his contract in November 2017, ending his 32-year run with the company, and he told Van Vliet about the personal (and somewhat ironic) situation he was in as he revealed the last song he wrote for the company.
“I wrote quite a few things, but they weren’t being used because I was being politically squashed. [The final song] was “End of Days” for Baron Corbin. Which was very apropos, if you look at the lyrics, there’s always something personal to the themes. A lot of the times it’s very personal. Baron’s was purely an epic, ‘I’m bringing end of days on you’, it’s very biographical. Also I’m talking about the end is coming, I’m bowing out. The big goodbye was my end of days. There’s a lot of stuff in there, anger and disappointment,” Johnston said. “But that happened a lot.”
“I wrote “No Chance In Hell” when I was really angry with Vince. It was a literal telling of what I saw,” he explained. “You have no chance against this guy. He doesn’t play by the rules.”
Jim Johnston also talked about the process of writing a new theme, explaining that he didn’t get too much preliminary information but always had a good idea of where to start.
“I never really got a whole lot of information. If I could see any video, that helped tremendously. Where I start, I want to know a basic tempo and vibe. If it’s a giant guy,” Johnston said, “it’s going to be a slower theme. The tempo reflects he’s a big guy. The guys that are smaller, you want to reflect the energy. You start there and I just try to find something that resonates. I just start playing stuff and something will make me go, ‘that’s it.’”
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