NPR's 40-Year-Old Morning Theme Music Is Gone

Anyone who puts NPR on in the morning is surely familiar with the Morning Edition theme music, because it hasn't changed since the show's debut in 1979. Until Monday, that is, when the show revealed updated music for the first time in 40 years. You can hear its debut here and compare to the original here. The New York Times has a longer version of the new music, which was composed by Man Made Music, a studio that has provided themes for HBO and Imax. Musicians involved in the project talk about it here.

"It’s not a decision that we took on lightly," Meg Goldthwaite, NPR’s chief marketing officer, tells the Times. "We wanted to freshen the music and get it ready for what we hope will be another 50 years. It just felt like it was time." The reboot is designed to appeal to a younger, more diverse audience, and it's linked to the celebration of the show's 40th anniversary in November. (More NPR stories.)