Woke Up This Morning

"Woke Up This Morning"
Single by Alabama 3
from the album Exile on Coldharbour Lane
Released	1997
Format	CD single
Recorded	1997
Genre	Blues
Length	4:14 4:05 (Chosen One Mix)
Label	One Little Indian
Writer(s)	Jake Black Rob Spragg
Producer	Alabama 3
Alabama 3 singles chronology
"Ain't Going to Goa" (1996) "Woke Up This Morning" (1997) "Speed of the Sound of Loneliness" (1997)

"Woke Up This Morning" is a song by Alabama 3 from their 1997 album Exile on Coldharbour Lane. The song is best known as the opening theme music for the HBO drama series The Sopranos (which used the "Chosen One Mix" that has lyrics in the second person instead of the first).

Alabama 3 frontman Rob Spragg wrote the song after hearing about the 1996 murder case of Sara Thornton, who stabbed her husband after 20 years of abuse, mistreatment and neglect. The song is co-written with Jake Black. Contrary to widespread attribution, Leonard Cohen did not write or perform the piece.

A number of influential artists are namechecked:

• Charles Mingus and the album Pithecanthropus Erectus
• J. R. Monterose
• Jackie McLean
• Eric Dolphy
• John Coltrane
• Duke Ellington
• Lester Young
• Billie Holiday
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Jimmy Reed
• Muddy Waters
• Howlin' Wolf

Musical structure

The song is in 4/4 time and in the key of F minor. It uses combinations of other styles such as techno, and blues. During the breakdown, there's an electronic chord progression in F major while the lyrics' melodic line is in F minor. The song has a very groovy and bluesy feel. It eventually fades out with the electric chord progression in the tonic major.

Use in other media

• A remixed version of "Woke Up This Morning" plays during the opening credits of the HBO television series The Sopranos.
  • On the Region 4 DVD release of season one of the Sopranos, the music video to "Woke Up This Morning" is included as a special feature: it is incorrectly credited as being performed by "Alabama 5".
• A shortened alternate version of "Woke Up This Morning" can be heard for nearly 50 seconds in The Simpsons episode "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge", while Fat Tony and his gang are on the ride to the Simpsons' house. The sequence is a parody of the opening sequence of The Sopranos. "Woke Up This Morning" is also in the later Simpsons episode "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer", which guest-starred Sopranos regulars Michael Imperioli and Joe Pantoliano.
• Rapper Nas sampled "Woke Up This Morning" for his 2001 hit "Got Ur Self A...."
• "Woke Up This Morning" was used in an episode of BBC series Top Gear, in which the team were driving through Florida.
• The song is parodied in the The Dabba Don episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, which itself parodies various mob stereotypes, including the Sopranos, and the Flintstones.