To see the lyrics, click on the name of the version you are interested in (on the left).

Very well known in UK and Ireland, the Father Ted theme is the tune that made The Divine Comedy famous! Father Ted was a huge success and so was the theme music. This tune was even more famous since becoming the music of Casanova’s ‘Songs of Love’. But let’s put things in order for those who haven’t watched the series: the Father Ted theme is not ‘Songs of Love’.

It all begun back in 1994, when Graham Linehan contacted Neil Hannon and asked him to write the music for Father Ted. Neil Hannon did so and proposed him a tune that would eventually later become ‘A Woman Of The World’ [1]. The team told Neil to do better, and so Neil brought back another instrumental piece. Then he went to a cheap studio so he could keep a part of the money that he was given [2] and recorded many versions of the theme. We are not listing them all yet, but two of them are most important: the opening music featuring in all episodes; and an extended version which closes the final episode.

None of these tunes were officially released. The music became then ‘Songs Of Love’ and was rerecorded in a better studio for Casanova. The version featuring the single Something For The Weekend and listed as ‘Father Ted theme’ is actually the album version of ‘Songs Of Love’ and not the actual theme music.


[1] Miriam Meets, RTÉ Radio 1, 14/02/2010
[2] MCM interview, 2001