Mark Snow has died. Although a composer who worked on hundreds of TV shows, TV films, and theatrical releases across a career that spanned five decades of compositions, Snow will likely go down in history for a single, indelible track: The theme song from The X-Files. But while that song—released on albums under the name “Materia Primoris,” but known to every sentient person who’s heard it simply as “the theme from The X-Files“—represents the apex of Snow’s reach as a composer, it barely scratches the breadth of his body of work. His compositions appear in huge swathes of TV history, from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse to Hart To Hart to Starsky & Hutch to Smallville to BlueBloods, to dozens of other major shows. Per Variety, Snow died on Friday at his home in Connecticut. He was 78.
Born in Brooklyn and trained at Julliard, Snow spent his early career writing and composing music as part of hybrid project New York Rock & Roll Ensemble. After a brief stint working as a record producer, a relative in the industry convinced Aaron Spelling to allow the young Snow (who was just then adopting the stage name, after previously performing under his birth name, Martin Fulterman) to try his hand at composing TV music for his ’70s cop show The Rookies. From there, Snow embarked on a massively successful career as a small-screen composer, grabbing an early success when he became composer for long-running mystery series Hart To Hart.
In 1993, Snow was working on scoring low-budget horror movies when his friend, TV producer R.W. Goodwin, approached him about a possible new gig: A new Fox supernatural procedural called The X-Files. In Snow’s telling, the initial audition process was rocky enough, and the show’s prospects uncertain enough, that he considered turning down the job; instead, his work on the series would wind up burning his music into the brains of millions. Snow talked, in various interviews, about elements of serendipity that influenced the creation of the track that would ultimately be the series’ theme song, including stumbling, entirely by accident, on the echoing sound effects that help give the song much of its haunting vibe. But he also tapped into years of growing familiarity with synthesizers—a necessity when working on shows without the time or budget to hire out full orchestras—to lay down the song’s A-minor melancholy. (Including, most spectacularly, its iconic six-note whistle.)
Besides making him the rare TV composer to chart on multiple countries’ single charts (the theme, released as an instrumental, performed well in both the U.K. and France), Snow’s wider work on the show also helped develop both its tone, and its reputation. Working largely with synths and ambient sounds, Snow spent nine seasons (plus the revivals) helping to build The X-Files’ vibes, adding immense texture to the series and contributing to each of its ultimately 200-plus episodes. (While also producing music for the franchise’s movies—getting to work with an orchestra for once—as well as affiliated shows like Millenniumand The Lone Gunmen.) His profile considerably raised, Snow continued to work in TV for the rest of his life, composing for One Tree Hill, Smallville, The Ghost Whisperer, Ringer, and, finally, Blue Bloods—with the CBS long-runner serving as a capstone for his career, with Snow ultimately writing music for all 290 of its episodes by the time it concluded in 2024.
