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“Suicide Is Painless” is a song written by Johnny Mandel (music) and Mike Altman (lyrics), which is best known for being featured as the theme song for both the movie and TV series M*A*S*H. The actual title is “Song from M*A*S*H” (Suicide is Painless)“. Mike Altman is the son of the original film’s director, Robert Altman, and was 14 years old when he composed the song’s lyrics. During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the 1980s, Robert Altman said that his son earned more than a million US dollars for co-writing the song while he only made US $70,000 for directing the movie. The song is played during the film’s opening credits, sung by uncredited session singers John Bahler, Tom Bahler, Ron Hicklin and Ian Freebairn-Smith (the vocals are... Read on...