Out with the old NPR music

Hold on tight, NPR is moving the furniture around, announcing it’s replacing its long-time musical theme on Morning Edition. How long-time? It’s been the same theme since the show debuted during the Carter administration.

Originally, it was more classical music oriented, as befit Public Radio of the day.

In a subsequent makeover, Morning Edition toned down the trumpets (nobody wants to wake up to trumpets) and accented piano and guitar.

You probably noticed that the theme is warm, “but has a weaker association with being energetic, fresh, and modern,” NPR CEO Jarl Mohn said in a letter to stations obtained by the industry trade journal Current.

The new theme, which hasn’t leaked, will be “warm, fresh, weighted, smart, modern, energetic, and very human,” he said.

Stations will get the new music on Monday but it won’t debut on the radio until May 6.