It’s not every day you’re cast in one of the best sitcoms on television, and it’s also pretty special to be asked to write its theme song — but to have both things happen to you at the same time? It might sound crazy, but that’s the chance Dawnn Lewis was given on 1987’s “A Different World.”
Before “A Different World” began filming, Lewis was on tour with a Broadway show that had used the same casting agents as the NBC series. Initially, they told Lewis they weren’t interested in having her audition for the show — but then, in one week, she received two different offers: one to write and record the theme song, and another to join the cast. There was just one problem. “Neither the musical director nor the casting director knew that they hired the same person,” she later told Vanity Fair. “Unfortunately, once everyone realized I was the same person that had just been cast to be in the show, I was no longer allowed to sing the theme song.”
According to Lewis, the reasoning for this was that performing the theme song would make it look like she was the star of the show, and producers wanted to make it clear that “A Different World” would be initially centered around Lisa Bonet’s character, Denise.
A Different World had many different theme song versions
The good news for Dawnn Lewis was that she helped to create one of the most memorable theme songs of the ’80s. The bad news was they didn’t want her to sing it. Enter Phoebe Snow, a singer/songwriter best known for her hit “The Poetry Man.” While Snow’s version was a success, Lewis said producers wanted to do something even more unique with the theme song. “Then they thought, let’s redo this every year. We’ll revamp it,” Lewis said in a Red Table Talk sit-down. “So Season 2 they had Aretha [Franklin] do it.” The Aretha Franklin version lasted for four seasons before the song was covered again by Boyz II Men for Season 6.
In the end, the “A Different World” theme song lasted longer on the show than Lewis herself. After Season 5, she departed the series due to what was becoming an overcrowded roster. “Originally, the show was about three women,” Lewis told Vanity Fair. “By the time Season 5 came, I think there were 14 people that were considered principals.” After leaving the show, Lewis continued both her singing and acting careers, earning a Grammy and even returning to the stage as part of the original Broadway cast of “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.” That said, she hasn’t seen the end of her “Different World” days yet — Lewis is set to return in Netflix’s 2026 reboot of the series.
