New Music for Talk
After a Decade on the Air, a New Theme

Recording the theme in NPR's Studio 4A Photo: David Banks, NPR

January, 2002 -- Talk of the Nation today introduces a new theme song -- one that its composer says befits a show meant to present diverse viewpoints.

For a show like Talk of the Nation, "you have to be able to find something that strikes many chords -- literally and figuratively," says Greg Smith, the former NPR staffer who wrote the theme. One man who heard the theme remarked to Smith that it reminded him of "driving across America." The melody, Smith says, just popped into his head one day.

Smith recruited Washington, D.C., conductor Osman Kivrak to assemble about two dozen musicians in NPR's studio 4A to record the new theme -- the second in Talk of the Nation's 10-year history.

It begins with a series of eighth notes played on the bass, which Smith says indicates that "something's about to happen." And then it does -- the French horn and trumpet-driven melody begins sounding over a harmony consisting of a consistent sweep between two chords. Space is left for the host (Neal Conan) to announce the topic and guests. The music swells on the back of a rising timpani progression, then falls away in time for the host to say, "First, the news."


Other Resources

The new theme.

The old theme.

An interview of Greg Smith by All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen.

Watch the All Songs Considered presentation of the interview.

Theme composer and former NPR staffer Greg Smith's homepage.

The theme for All Things Considered has changed several times over the past three decades.

And for a more bizarre version of the All Things Considered theme, here's the cast of the TV show MASH with their rendition. Ira Glass, now the host of public-radio show This American Life, was an NPR intern in 1979, working on a story about MASH when he taped this sequence. Caution: there's a bit of blue language by cast members before the singing.