ATC Theme Overload

Listener Erik recently discovered the blog, and graciously sent some audio gems to share with y'all. Here's what he says:

It's been about 32 years since National Public Radio launched the news program, All Things Considered. Makes me feel old. I still enjoy listening to Susan Stamberg and other long-timers on a frequent basis.

Dink... dink... dink... dink... Ah! It must be time for the news. Though the theme music to the program has changed over the years, it's always been unique, appropriate and recognizable.

There's only one mention of the theme music on the WFMU blog, and no sound clips. Your 2006 news theme blog entry inspired me to dig up an item from my cassette collection.

All Things Considered Themes (zip file)

MP3s:
ATC Theme - 1971 (Original)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Part 1)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Part 2)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Part 1 and 2)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Funky Brass Part 1)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Funky Brass Part 2)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Newsy Brass)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Long Dink Dink Headlines Bridge)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Short Dink Dink Headlines Bridge)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Xylophone Transition)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Short Transition)
ATC Theme - 1976 (Low Synth Transition)
ATC Theme - 1983
ATC Theme - Washington Saxophone Quartet Version
ATC Theme - 1995

Some are from the NPR web site and some are those I recorded while doing my TV production internship back in 1986. This was a small collection of ATC theme music and transitions on vinyl for production purposes. I don't happen to have the cover artwork, though.

A couple of the tracks, and others are found here (The 30th Anniversary of NPR's All Things Considered news program includes recordings of its theme music, from original through today).

Some weirdness...
The Leviathan Oriental Fox Trot Orchestra plays their version of NPR's All Things Considered theme.

Listener submissions for possible lyrics to the theme music.

UPDATE: Listener and ex-KSAN DJ Glenn Lambert checks in to share the opening theme music to a film called Murder, He Says (1945). A quick listen... a startling revelation?!

Opening Theme from Murder, He Says (MP3)

Here are Glenn's comments:

This is a wonderful movie that few people know. I saw it years ago in a theatre and loved it. There was a brief VHS release, no DVD ? I found a used VHS at Amoeba in Hollywood.

If you ever do see it, you'll never hear the ATC theme without putting these lyrics to it...

Flieson horsis.
Incomb beesis.
Onchest knobis.
Inknob keysis.

Comments

[joe 12-pk]

Thanks, Liz! I love the original all-Moog theme, and the straight-outta-Sesame Street "Funky Brass pt.2"...The Leviathan Oriental Fox Trot Orchestra's interpretation sounds like Julius Fucik, of "Entry of the Gladiators" fame. But I couldn't open the TV production internship link-- my browser (Firefox) said "the protocol (ttp) isn't associated with any program." I'm guessing there's an "h" missing in the hyperlink....

[JMB]

Didn't Kenny G have a collection of Morning Edition theme song versions?

I used to have a really great early 80s ABC World News Tonight themesong on my computer that was funky as all hell.

[Liz B.]

Thanks for the heads-up, Joe 12-pk, fixed that bad link.

[joe 12-pk]

On repeated listen, "Funky Brass pt.2" is really more Taxi/ Rhoda/ Bob Newhart Show than it is Sesame Street...Nick At Nite territory, in other words.

[Ken in Denver]

Everybody, sing along:

"We're considering
all sorts of things
All sorts of things
get considered here"

What's really comical these days is the cheery flute-music lead-in to the almost-always-grim business-news segment of Morning Edition.

[John Pemble]

The All Things Considered old school themes are now on my iTunes and I gave a copy to Iowa Public Radio news director Jonathan Ahl and now it's in his iTunes. Synching to iPod later. Why not? Thanks for posting these. Oddly this week I am making sure I have theme music from various NPR program available with meta data so we can roll em out fast if need be. You did a good job by the way of assigning meta data to the MP3 files. Not enough people do that.

[woid]

There's a terrific 1945 comedy-thriller called "Murder, He Says," about Fred McMurray as a Gallup-style pollster who's kidnapped by a family of homicidal hillbillies.

Throughout the movie there's a recurring little song which turns out to be important to the plot, with a tune that was probably made up by the movie's composer, Robert Emmet Dolan.

And that song is, just about note-for-note, the theme to "All Things Considered."

I've been waiting for years for somebody to mention one or the other so I could bring this up!...

"Murder, He Says" has never come out on DVD, and doesn't seem to get on TV either. I found a used VHS a few years ago and grabbed it. Just now, after reading the post, I yoinked the audio for the opening credits to mp3. Lemme see if I can figure out how to mail it to Liz Berg...

[Ned Bodie]

ATC's theme was taken from a song from a 1940's Fred McMurrey movie(with him playing the silly goof rather than the killer or the philanderer, as he sometimes does). It was in a comedy/mystery called "Murder He Said". The tune (rather the words to the tune) led Fred to the solution to the mystery.

[Ned Bodie]

Dammit. Woid beat me to the punch. I guess I should read all the comments before I post. But he's right. From what I can recall, it was taken note for note from that movie. I too, had been waiting for someone to notice the similarity, but had not commented on it myself. Perhaps being familiar with Fred's more obscure movies is a trait related to a natural reticence for action..along with not reading previous posts, shuffling Fred-like in a cardigan sweater,pipe in hand,in nickeled loafers.

[Stoned Mellotron]

check out "All Things Reconsidered" by Phish on their album Rift

[Dale]

To Ken in Denver's point, when ever it's rotten news, my wife and I sing the tune adding sort of a 'wah, wahhhhhh' at the end.

By posting these versions BotB again answers a musical question that no one ever asked.

[Norm]

they still play the saxophone version from time to time. i like it. it reminds me of eric satie's gymnopedia

[holland_oats]

these are great - really fun hearing their theme evolve from something out of clockwork orange

[Kottick]

Indeed, those first notes are the same. The lyric you quoted isn't right, though. The Murder He Says poem is sung as:

Onors flysis
incom beesis
onchess nobbis
innob keesis

Grandma in the film declares, "To them that doesn't know the tune, sounds like the ravings of a loon!" Actually, the tune does not solve the lyric's clues at all.

[Richard in PA]

Great resource...I was trying to imagine what the theme used to sound like (the 1976 version) and here it is...makes me want to hear Noah Adams and Susan Stamberg yet again...

[Joe Layde]

I think all the related tunes are based on Robert Schumann's "Arabesque in C Major," Op. 19.