Mind-blowing Secrets In The Mission Impossible Theme And Beethoven

Spy movie contains secret code. Who could've guessed?

Composer Lalo Schifrin performing live on stage, known for writing the Mission: Impossible theme.
Lalo Schifrin, composer of the Mission: Impossible theme

You know what, as a former Scout and a lifelong musician, I'm ashamed to admit that I only learned this fact this week. The 'dun, dun, dun-dun' theme tune from Mission Impossible is Morse code for MI. Mind, blown! To be fair, I never really got the hang of Morse code in all my years as a Scout, unlike the NATO phonetic alphabet, which for some reason I memorised one night aged around eight from my dad's old army manual.

V for Victory

The musical Mission Impossible Easter egg is not the first of its kind. In WWII, the dun-dun-dun duuuun opening bars of Beethoven's 5th were adopted and repeated as a call sign by the BBC European Service after Churchill began using the 'V for victory' sign. Three dots and a dash is 'V' in Morse code. Not Beethoven's intention, of course, but cool nonetheless. It's unclear whether Samuel Morse based the letter V on Beethoven's famous motif.

Enjoyed this?

Learn more about music

or 

Commission a piece about this for your website 

Comments