Alf Clausen passed away at his home in Los Angeles last Thursday, May 29, at the age of 84.
His daughter, Kaarin Clausen, shared with The Hollywood Reporter that he’d been fighting progressive supranuclear palsy for eight years. Born in Minneapolis and growing up in Jamestown, Alf’s life took a musical turn when he started learning big-band songwriting through the mail from Berklee College of Music, even before he moved to Boston and became their first French horn player. He didn’t stick around in North Dakota for long, swapping out small-town life for the big city, chasing melodies and harmonies.
Before anyone knew his name from The Simpsons, Alf hustled in Los Angeles, piecing together gigs as a freelancer, arranger, and sometimes a ghostwriter. He worked on TV shows like Donny & Marie and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour. The 1980s brought him to Moonlighting, where his music earned him six Emmy nods, and then he even scored music for ALF (which is kind of funny, because, well, his name). Movie fans might remember his work in Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and The Naked Gun.
Fans think it’s wild how many episodes he scored for The Simpsons.
When The Simpsons needed a new composer in its second season, Alf almost turned it down. He once said, “I just got off of four years of Moonlighting, and I really want to be a drama composer. I’m more interested in doing longform feature films.” But Matt Groening convinced him by saying, “we look on our show as being not a cartoon—we look upon it as a drama where the characters are drawn.” That probably changed everything.
Alf ended up writing music for over 560 episodes, arranging Danny Elfman’s theme with a full orchestra, and filling Springfield with big band, jazz, and Broadway-style songs that were sometimes goofy but could also make you feel something deep. He picked up 21 Emmy nominations just for The Simpsons and won two: “We Put the Spring in Springfield” (1997) and “You’re Checkin’ In (A Musical Tribute To The Betty Ford Center)” (1998). You can still find his songs on albums like Songs in the Key of Springfield and Go Simpsonic With The Simpsons.
We really love when someone’s music becomes the background to our favorite memories.
Matt Groening once called him “one of the unacknowledged treasures of the show,” which feels true, because Alf’s soundtracks are everywhere but sometimes people forget who made them. Sometimes, thinking about all the work behind the scenes makes you wonder what other hidden talents are out there, quietly making things awesome.
