Nadia's Theme

"Nadia's Theme" is a piece of music composed by Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr. in 1971. It became associated with Olympic gymnast Nadia Comăneci during and after the 1976 Summer Olympics. The composition is the theme music to the American television soap opera The Young and the Restless.

De Vorzon and Botkin Jr. composed this piece of music, originally titled "Cotton's Dream", as incidental music for the 1971 theatrical film Bless the Beasts and Children. The instrumental version was commercially released on that film's soundtrack album on A&M Records. The soundtrack also included "Lost", a song set to this melody, performed by Renée Armand.

Botkin Jr. later composed a rearranged version of the instrumental theme for the U.S. TV soap opera The Young and the Restless, which debuted on March 26, 1973, on the CBS television network. Although a soundtrack album for the TV series was released by P.I.P. Records in 1974, the LP only contained a cover version by easy listening group Sounds of Sunshine, rather than the original recording by De Vorzon and Botkin.

In late July or early August 1976, ABC's sports summary program Wide World of Sports produced a montage of Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci's routines during the 1976 Summer Olympics and used "Cotton's Dream" as the background music. It was this American television montage that cemented the association of the tune with Comăneci in the public mind. (Comăneci herself never performed her floor exercises using this piece of music, however. She used a piano arrangement of a medley of the songs "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" and "Jump in the Line".)

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