Query

Would a TV detective, generally speaking, ever listen to his or her theme song? 

(We know that James Bond is intimately familiar with his theme song — he probably hums it as he makes coffee — sorry, espresso.)

I can see Steve McGarrett listening to the furious, pounding adventure theme of Hawaii Five-0, but would Jim Rockford listen to the easy-going synth-driven rock that heralds The Rockford Files?  The theme to The X-Files seems to suit creepy, introverted Fox Mulder, but it seems a stretch to think that greying, wheelchair-bound Robert Ironside would hum his headache-inducing ambulance-siren theme song as he trundles about solving murders.  Would Baretta be caught dead listening to the mellow sounds of Sammy Davis Jr.?  Could Barnaby Jones move to the hard-charging theme that bears his name?  I suppose David Addison and Maddie Hayes would listen to the ironic, fake-Cole-Porter of their theme, as their adventures are all about being fake Cole Porter, but can the same be said of Laura Holt and her partner Remington Steele?  Is the solution to split the difference between characters, as they do The Streets of San Francisco, giving the older cop his jazz theme but setting it to the younger cop’s disco beat?

And what the hell did Mannix’s theme sound like?  Longstreet’s?  Cannon’s?  Quincy’s?

I guess the question is, does Greg House listen to Massive Attack as he mulls over cases?  Like many detectives, his music seems pitched at a demographic fifteen years younger than himself.  When House listens to “his” music, it’s generally things like Taj Mahal singing the Rolling Stones, or Elvis Costello singing Christina Aguilara. 

(Ironically, when House sits down at the piano the music he plays is always classical.  Which came first, I wonder?  Did he have classical lessons as a child, then take up the Rolling Stones as a teen?  If so, he came to the Stones late — born in 1959, he would have started with Exile on Main Street at the earliest, and gone back to 1969’s Let it Bleed for his philosophical lodestar “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”)