Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite film composer, Bernard Herrmann, was born this day in 1911 (d. 1975). In his long career, he scored not only the Hitchcock classics Psycho, Vertigo and North By Northwest, but a slew of other films, among them Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. A prolific composer, he also provided music for TV shows, including Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Herrmann’s compositions and arrangements are marked by musical tension and subtlety that highlights and accentuates the events on screen without overwhelming them, a neat trick, and it’s great, if often neglected, music.
Men at Work singer/guitarist/songwriter Colin Hay was born this day in 1953. Here are two of his most well-known tunes: