Long before streaming services bid the option of skipping past the scuttle credits , millions of HBO viewers search forward to the song that introducedThe Sopranos . The darkly humourous mob drama , which ran from 1999 to 2007 , submit the domestic and business challenges of Tony Soprano ( James Gandolfini ) , a New Jersey capo who suffered anxiousness attacks from the tenseness of being a criminal kinfolk humankind . After the famously static - riddenHBOlogo appear , the show ’s credits rolled , with Tony drive through Jersey and perpetrate into his driveway while “ Woke Up This Morning ” played .
While British - base ring Alabama 3 did n’t write " Woke Up This Morning " expressly for the series , it did take inspiration from the sort of violence draw on the show : The song was based on a real - life execution .
As Alabama 3 songwriter Rob Spraggrecountedto Ladbible.com in 2019 , “ Woke Up This first light ” was pep up by the case of Sara Thornton , a domesticated insult survivor in Warwickshire , England . In 1989 , Thornton murdered her husband , Malcolm , by stabbing him while he rested on the sofa after he had made repeated threatstowardboth her and their young girl . She wasconvictedof murder in 1990 .
Women ’s advocacy groups argued that Thornton was battered and dire to protect herself . When she was finally grant a retrial , her sheath hinged largely upon the idea that she had dissociative episodes .
in the end , a panel did not find her shamefaced of slaying but did charge her with manslaughter . In 1996 , she was freed .
“ She stabbed him to decease , ” Spragg say . “ After years of maltreatment , she just had enough . So she woke up one morning and resolve to go and get herself a knife . That would have been the language , but it did n’t quite vocalise right , so we changed it to gun . The rest is chronicle . ”
Alabama 3 unblock the track in 1997 . David Chase , who was preparingThe Sopranosfor its 1999 debut at the meter , heard the call on the receiving set . Alabama 3 wound up agreeing to a deal where HBO paid them just $ 500 to use the Song dynasty . With royalties factor in , the group has earn nearly $ 400,000 as of 2019 . The birdsong also reverse up in Chase ’s 2021 prequel filmThe Many Saints of Newark .
Accordingto Spragg , Thornton herself is familiar with the song . “ She really likes [ it ] , ” he allege . “ I ’m so pleased . ”
