Who Pays The Ferryman?, The Aphrodite Inheritance and The Dark Side of the Sun all had specially written scores which the BBC released as soundtrack LPs, and singles. Presumably it was the immense popularity of the theme for Ferryman which prompted them to market the music in this way.

The theme for The Lotus Eaters was not an original composition: it is called "Ta Trena Pou Fyghan" and was a track from "Hellespontus", an LP of music by Stavros Xarhakos. I am told that it translates as something about a train leaving a station ...

Ta (the) Trena (train) Pou (where) Fyghan (left...gone. departing ....more towards gone...) so The train has left or gone .. (from the station perhaps?)

It was released as a single by Columbia in 1973 by the Stavros Xarhakos Orchestra with a "Greek Version" of the theme (by Stella and Bambos) on the B side. Numerous versions have appeared on TV theme compilation discs or general Greek Music compilations.

Late in 2020 website visitor Chris Doyle emailed to say ... Maybe I am discovering something folk know already, but I remember buying the Hellas Pontus LP after watching the tv series on BBC. I have often thought there ought to be vocal versions of this quintessential Greek theme, but difficult to trace before internet, which along with the series must have done much for Greek tourism ... my research into the vocal versions of Ta Trena Pou Figan, the last train to love (more linked to Olympic planes in the absence of Kritirail): the first, which I have recently purchased by Agnes Baltsa on Songs my country, but also on You Tube, a nice version by Haris Alexiou, also 2005 remastered by Vicky Mosholiu, a version by no less than Jose Carreras, a trio version by Mosholiu, Alexiou and Talani, plus an instrumental version by Thomas Vasilakis. Alexiou and Mosholiu available on Amazon download.

In October 1971 Bird wrote to Producer Anthony Read suggesting that the theme for the series should be a ballad "Three coins in the Fountain type stuff but to Cretan style music. And it might be a good scheme to have our singer sing the theme in Greek over the opening title and then in English over the closing credits."

He offered the lyrics alongside "just to give you an idea of the kind of thing I have in mind."

Read's response is not documented, but as we know the suggestion was not taken up.