Morning Edition is celebrating its 35th anniversary this week.
Over the years, many stories, voices and sounds have come and gone on the show. But there has remained one constant — our theme music.
The Morning Edition theme was written by BJ Leiderman in 1979. At the time, he was a struggling college student who wrote jingles on the side. He gave a demo tape of his music to a friend who worked at NPR.
On that tape was one little musical phrase that eventually became the Morning Edition theme music.
After it was selected, Leiderman wrote lyrics to accompany his little ditty:
Oh I hate to get up in the morning
Please don't wake me up this morning
Let me stay in bed ... and ... sleep (I don't like to daydream)
The world can turn without me today
And if you wake me up I can say
That we will not be friends ... for ... long
Remember when ... we used to sleep forever?
Dreams ... floating as light as feathers
When ... will those delightful dreams
Come back again?
Tell me when!!!
For crying out loud, please would you shut up
No news, no features, I've had enough ...
But, say, who wrote your great ... theme ... song???
Since that time, Leiderman has composed many other public radio classics. He has written themes for Weekend Edition, Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!, Car Talk and Marketplace.
Next year, he'll release his first album. It's called Natural Public Leiderman.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
